Extend support to other repositories

[clnsmth]

It's very likely that users of the EDI Repository have data archived else where. Consider extending the scope of ezCatalog to provide users a single interface for showcasing their data.

[adam-kennedy]

The Andrews Forest LTER would also find a lot of value in this.

[clnsmth]

Hi @adam-kennedy, which repositories do you have in mind?

[adam-kennedy]

Hey Colin,
We have a couple Andrews researchers who have published data to ForestGeo and Cuashi on hydroshare.
https://www.hydroshare.org
https://forestgeo.si.edu

It seems like we will be getting more and more datasets that really aren’t that appropriate for EDI or FSDB, like genetics or remote sensing.

Again, nice work on exCatalog!

[clnsmth]

Well @adam-kennedy, I was hoping you're list would only include repositories in the DataONE network : ), which may be supported by incorporating their Solr search endpoint into ezCatalog. However, ForestGEO is outside the network and highlights a scalability issue with ezCatalog.

Implementing unique support for an unbounded set of repositories can get out of hand, and is outside of the current scope of this project. Not to say that this feature won't be supported in future, but it's not going to happen any time soon. Until then, you may want to consider the Zotero-JavaScript-Search-Client by @twhiteaker and @atn38 of BLE-LTER. An example instance is the EDI Products catalog embedded in our website. This catalog doesn't provide the metadata search options of ezCatalog but does list data sources from any location, albeit, you'll have to manually enter each item into a Zotero citation manager. An additional benefit of using Zotero is other products like research articles can be listed alongside data publications in a comprehensive searchable catalog for your site.