The past year can be defined by several transitions across many areas of our work, and this has also been evident within our Digital Collections. As technologies shift and user expectations continue to grow, we have taken steps to modernize how our collections are shared online.

A key milestone of 2025 has been the implementation of Quartex, our new online digital collections platform. Quartex joins DSpace as our two primary sources for hosting and delivering our online digital collections. Both serve complementary roles in ensuring that our digital content remains accessible, stable, and adaptable to future needs.

From our digital collections homepage, users will not notice a difference between collections hosted in either DSpace or Quartex. The distinction becomes visible after clicking on a collection’s thumbnail. This approach allows a consistent entry point for exploring all of our collections, regardless of the platform.

Or you can go directly to Quartex here.

Quartex

As our newest platform, Quartex currently houses a selection of our higher-profile digital collections, allowing us to present these materials in a more dynamic and user-friendly environment. The platform currently features six collections totaling more than 7,577 items.

The majority of the collections currently available in Quartex were migrated from DSpace as part of a broader effort to upgrade access. This includes our long-standing Biblical Recorder newspaper collection, which has actually had two migrations within its lifespan. It also includes our Lloyd Winchell Biebigheiser collection, which is our first photo collection added to Quartex.

Notably, we are currently in the process of migrating the Wake Forest University Athletics collection to Quartex, an effort that will continue throughout the coming year. This collection encompasses a wide range of formats (video, audio, images, and text-based materials), making it one of our most diverse digital collections. Because of its ability to support multiple media types and present materials in a more integrated and visually engaging way, Quartex provides an ideal environment for showcasing this content.

We also plan to expand the Athletics collection throughout 2026. To date, we have added dozens of football programs and media guides to Quartex, all of which were digitized by our student workers in the Digitization Lab this past Fall semester.

A key part of implementing Quartex involved learning the functionality and workflows of the platform itself. This was made possible through close collaboration between ZSR’s Technology Team and Special Collections.

The process of migrating collections to Quartex from DSpace was not simply a direct transfer. Quartex introduces a different approach to metadata structure and collection organization. The ingest process also differs significantly from our established DSpace workflows—while more seamless in some ways and more complex in other aspects. As we’ve grown more comfortable working in Quartex, the process has become less complex and easier to manage.

DSpace

DSpace is our longest-standing digital collections platform, having supported online access to our materials since 2008. It still serves as the primary home for the majority of our digital collections. It reflects nearly two decades of digitization, metadata description, and stewardship work. It represents the foundation upon which our digital collections program has grown. DSpace will continue to play an important role in supporting the long-term preservation and stability of our digital collections and also the WakeSpace institutional repository.

Out of the 124 Digital Collections that we provide access, DSpace houses 112 of these collections. This underscores the platform’s continued central role in our digital collections ecosystem.

DSpace vs Quartex

Rather than replacing DSpace, the addition of Quartex allows us to expand how we deliver digital collections online. The two platforms serve complementary purposes: DSpace continues to provide a dependable foundation for our digital collections, while Quartex offers new opportunities to highlight selected collections through more visually dynamic and media-rich experiences.

One ongoing challenge though is determining how best to integrate searching across both DSpace and Quartex from a single entry point on our homepage. While users can currently access all of collections through the site, creating a unified search experience across both platforms remains an area we are actively exploring.

Other platforms

Our digital collections are also bolstered by externally hosted platforms that are accessible from our homepage. This includes DigitalNC, which holds several of our WFU publications, such as our Howler Yearbooks; Lam Museum Online Collections; Reynolda House; and the Wake Forest University Photo Library.

Supporting Access and Discovery

While the platforms that host our collections may differ, the goal remains the same: to make it easier for users to discover and engage with our materials. Across DSpace, Quartex, and the externally hosted platforms, our Digital Collections now provide access to nearly 304,000 digital items, representing years of digitization, metadata creation, and ongoing stewardship work.

Together, these efforts support continued access to our collections while helping preserve Wake Forest University’s digital history over time.