Following a period of internal testing we are pleased to make the first stable EPrints 3.3 release available for download at http://files.eprints.org/691/. If you just want to test out the new version you can access our demonstration repository at http://demoprints.eprints.org/ (account creation requires email address verification).

EPrints 3.3 represents 18 months of effort since the release of 3.2. Version 3.2 brought with it new features that were aimed at making EPrints more flexible and giving more control to repository administrators. 3.3 is a natural progression of this effort that enables a new, completely flexible, data model managed through configuration files. This sets the foundation for using EPrints as a lightweight tool for research management and reporting (CRIS) through e.g. managing projects data.

New optional features and extensions are now 1-click installable through the EPrints Bazaar. The Bazaar is a centralised repository for plugins, extensions, styles and more with a complete control interface within the EPrints software. Repository administrators can browse, install and update extensions with simple 1-click controls. For developers, EPrints includes Web tools for building new extension packages.

The search engine in EPrints is now plugin-extensible. 3.3 comes with support for the Xapian probabilistic search engine (requires Xapian system libraries). Xapian supports boolean queries and relevance-based search results. For non-Xapian supported systems and advanced searching the internal search has been improved to address issues raised by the community – case sensitivity, name-matching and more. For a full(er) list of new features and bugs fixed by the 3.3 branch see http://wiki.eprints.org/w/New_Features_in_EPrints_3.3.