Content in WHOAS is licensed to the Library for distribution* to the world community as part of the Open Archive Initiative. To grant the license to the Library, the contributor must have distribution rights within Copyright Law. Learn about managing copyright.

The organization of WHOAS is by institution (Communities) and the research departments/centers within the institution (Collections). Authorized users contribute content to WHOAS with easy-to-use web forms that describe the content and its format type. Visitors to WHOAS can search the content of one collection, or may select to search across the entire content of the archive.

The nature of the content contributed is determined in guidelines developed by the department/center. Content includes a variety of objects (i.e., book chapters, data sets, maps, presentations, and technical reports) in a variety of digital formats (i.e., Word, pdfs, images, and Powerpoint.) Once placed in WHOAS, the content remains preserved, even when the contributor retires or departs Woods Hole. The responsibility for migrating content as format types evolve or become obsolete is the Library’s.

The software platform of WHOAS is DSpace, an open source system developed jointly by MIT Libraries and Hewlett-Packard (HP). Learn more about DSpace.

For more information, please contact Ann Devenish: .

*upon request, contributors to WHOAS may limit access to their content for a limited period of time.