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>MELLON GRANT LETS LIBRARIES AND COMPUTER SCIENTISTS
JOIN FORCES TO >CREATE NEW SOLUTION FOR DIGITAL INFORMATION MANAGEMENT > >Charlottesville, VA-Thanks to a generous grant from the Andrew W. >Mellon Foundation, the University of Virginia Library announces the >release of an open-source digital object repository management >system. The Fedora Project, a joint effort of the University of >Virginia and Cornell University, has now made available the first >version of a system based on the Flexible Extensible Digital Object >Repository Architecture, originally developed at Cornell. > >Fedora repositories can provide the foundation for a variety of >information management schemes, not least among them digital library >systems. At the University of Virginia, Fedora is being used to >build a large-scale digital library that will soon have millions of >digital resources of all media and content types. It is also >currently being tested by a consortium of institutions that include >the Library of Congress, Northwestern University, Tufts University, >and others. They are building testbeds drawn from their own digital >collections that they will use to evaluate the software and give >feedback to the project. > >This first version of the software is designed to support a >repository containing one million objects using freely available >software. It fully implements the Fedora architecture, provides the >first version of a graphical user interface to manage the >repository, and provides facilities to create and ingest batches of >objects. The software has the following key features: > > --Management API (API-M) - defines an interface for administering >the repository. It includes operations necessary for clients to >create and maintain digital objects and their components. API-M is >implemented as a SOAP-enabled web service. > > --Access API (API-A) - defines an interface for accessing digital >objects stored in the repository. It includes operations necessary >for clients to perform disseminations on objects in the repository >and to discover information about an object using object reflection. >API-A is implemented as a SOAP-enabled web service. > > --Access-Lite API (API-A-Lite) - defines a streamlined version of >the Fedora Access Service that is implemented as an HTTP-enabled web >service. > > --Datastreams - Objects in a repository may contain content and >metadata (i.e. datastreams) that physically reside inside the >repository or outside the repository. The Fedora repository system >supports content of any MIME type. > > --XML Submission and Storage - Fedora digital objects conform to >an extension of the Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard >(METS), described at http://www.loc.gov/standards/mets/. Objects can >be submitted to the repository in XML format. Also, digital objects >are persistently stored in the repository as XML files. The Fedora >extension of the METS schema can be found at >http://www.fedora.info/definitions/1/0/mets-fedora-ext.xsd. > > --Versioning - The Fedora repository system includes the >infrastructure to support versioning of digital objects and their >components. This feature will be available in Release 1.2, projected >for Fall 2003. > > --Access Control and Authentication - Release 1.0 includes a >simple form of access control to provide access restrictions based >on IP address. IP range restriction is supported in both the >Management and Access APIs. In addition, the Management API is >protected by HTTP Basic Authentication. Release 2.0 will provide >Shibboleth-based authentication and authorization, XML-based policy >_expression_, and enforcement of fine-grained access control policies. > > --Disseminators - Digital objects can be associated with a set of >behaviors and a service that runs those behaviors. This provides an >extensible mechanism for transforming or presenting the object's >digital content. > > --Default Disseminator - The Default Disseminator is a built-in >internal disseminator on every object that provides a system-defined >behavior mechanism for disseminating the basic contents of an object. > > --Searching - Selected system metadata fields are indexed along >with the primary Dublin Core record for each object. The Fedora >repository system provides a search interface for both full text and >field-specific queries across these metadata fields. > > --OAI Metadata Harvesting Provider - The OAI Protocol for >Metadata Harvesting is a standard for sharing metadata across >repositories. Every Fedora digital object has a primary Dublin Core >record that conforms to the schema at: >http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc.xsd. This metadata is >accessible using the OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting, v2.0. > > --Batch Utility - The Fedora repository system includes a Batch >Utility as part of the Management client that enables the mass >creation and loading of data objects. > >Fedora is being made available as an open-source product under a >Mozilla Public License. For more information and to download the >software, visit http://www.fedora.info/. > >-- >Ronda A. Grizzle >Technical Coordinator, Fedora Project >Digital Library Research & Development >(voice)434-924-3965 >(fax)434-924-1431 >---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >Sun Education and Research has posted several new PDF >whitepapers on its www.sun.com/edu website. These include: > >- The Digital Library Toolkit, Version Three >- The Digital Campus Primer >- The E-Learning Architectural Framework >- Digital Library Technology Trends >- Information Technology Advances in Libraries > >---------------------------------------------------------------------- --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: rlancefi...@mail.wesleyan.edu To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-mcn_mcn-l-12800...@listserver.americaneagle.com |
