[CODE4LIB] Preservation of Listserv Archives
Dear Lists, Has anyone worked on preserving a Listserv (proprietary) archive of messages? What can one do, other than make sure that the server hosting the list in question is backed up (LOCKSS style, with geographic separation) and kept up in good working order? The archive search interface does a pretty good job at access, but what about true long-term preservation? Any advice appreciated! Apologies for cross-postings. Thanks, Nathan Nathan Tallman Associate Archivist American Jewish Archives
Re: [CODE4LIB] TIFF Metadata to XML?
Also, see FITS (http://code.google.com/p/fits/) FITS is an open source java toolset we wrote that wraps JHOVE, ExifTool, and several other format analysis tools and produces a single XML output stream. It also includes a crosswalk to MIX XML as an optional output. Date:Mon, 18 Jul 2011 10:40:04 -0400 From:Edward M. Corrado ecorr...@ecorrado.us Subject: Re: TIFF Metadata to XML? Thanks for all the suggestions. I know have multiple ways to get an XML file... now I only need to figure out which fields map to what. Edward On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 9:57 AM, Dave Rice d...@avpreserve.com wrote: Try exiftool with the -X flag to get RDF XML output. Dave Rice avpreserve.com On Jul 18, 2011, at 9:18 AM, Edward M. Corrado wrote: Hello All, Before I re-invent the wheel or try many different programs, does anyone have a suggestion on a good way to extract embedded Metadata added by cameras and (more importantly) photo-editing programs such as Photoshop from TIFF files and save it as as XML? I have 60k photos that have metadata including keywords, descriptions, creator, and other fields embedded in them and I need to extract the metadata so I can load them into our digital archive. Right now, after looking at a few tools and having done a number of Google searches and haven't found anything that seems to do what I want. As of now I am leaning towards extracting the metadata using exiv2 and creating a script (shell, perl, whatever) to put the fields I need into a pseudo-Dublin Core XML format. I say pseudo because I have a few fields that are not Dublin Core. I am assuming there is a better way. (Although part of me thinks it might be easier to do that then exporting to XML and using XSLT to transform the file since I might need to do a lot of cleanup of the data regardless.) Anyway, before I go any further, does anyone have any thoughts/ideas/suggestions? Edward -- End of CODE4LIB Digest - 15 Jul 2011 to 18 Jul 2011 (#2011-171) ***
[CODE4LIB] Any Experiences with In-House Training and Development?
Hey folks, had a topic come up here that seemed relevant to the tenor of this group. Would be interested in hearing if anybody else has approached the same situation, and how they went about it. Technology, especially in regards to software development, is a pretty constantly moving target, and there are always new methodologies, tools, practices and models that need to be evaluated and possibly adopted. Or, put another way, developers need to be learning constantly if they're going to stay relevant. Unfortunately, in today's economic climate, the prospect of being able to ship your developer team across the country to attend week-long seminars or conferences or what-have-you is not quite as realistic as it once might have been, especially in the academic and library world. The obvious solution would seem to be implementing some sort of in-house skills training program to keep developers sharp. Possibly something like a mutual book study with followup reports or presentations, or maybe bringing in an outside presenter. I wonder if any of the groups here have implemented anything along these lines, and how have they gone about it? Things that we'd be interesting in knowing, if you've done any sort of in-house training program would be: - Topics: What sort of things did you cover? New languages? New technologies? Programming practices? - Method: What did you use? Books? On-line courses? Videos? Hired speakers? - Budget: Did you have one? What were the costs involved? - Time: How much time did you allocate to training? Were you able to provide study time for those involved in the training? - Evaluation methods: How did you evaluate the effectiveness of the training? Did those involved give reports? Did you do any sort of coding reviews? - Results: Was it worth it? Would you do it again? We'd love to hear from any and all of those out there who have implemented (or attempted to implement) something along these lines. Thanks! -Kurt
Re: [CODE4LIB] TIFF Metadata to XML?
On Jul 19, 2011, at 10:34 AM, Stern, Randall wrote: Also, see FITS (http://code.google.com/p/fits/) FITS is an open source java toolset we wrote that wraps JHOVE, ExifTool, and several other format analysis tools and produces a single XML output stream. It also includes a crosswalk to MIX XML as an optional output. Really? You named a tool that deals with image data 'FITS' ? You do realize there's actually a 30+ year old image standard called FITS: http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/ (which has its own metadata standard, just to make things even more interesting) -Joe
Re: [CODE4LIB] TIFF Metadata to XML?
On Jul 19, 2011, at 11:03 AM, Joe Hourcle wrote: On Jul 19, 2011, at 10:34 AM, Stern, Randall wrote: Also, see FITS (http://code.google.com/p/fits/) FITS is an open source java toolset we wrote that wraps JHOVE, ExifTool, and several other format analysis tools and produces a single XML output stream. It also includes a crosswalk to MIX XML as an optional output. Really? You named a tool that deals with image data 'FITS' ? You do realize there's actually a 30+ year old image standard called FITS: http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/ (which has its own metadata standard, just to make things even more interesting) This appears to the a known issue in their tracker: http://code.google.com/p/fits/issues/detail?id=10. Medium priority. Also it's worth comparing the FITS' output to the output of exiftool -X. IIRC FITS uses a low level of verbosity with their FITS integration, though this may not be noticeable with some formats. Dave Rice avpreserve.com
[CODE4LIB] REST interface types
I'm getting ready to write a REST interface to OCLC's crosswalking system. My problem is that I'm not convinced developers actually want a textbook REST interface. I have a hunch that most developers really just want a non-SOAP url they can POST to with a crosswalked version returned in the response body. Given the classifications here [1], I was wondering if people could give some feedback about what interface type they'd actually want to use, what might be too much effort to use, and what they're sure they don't want. Thanks, Devon [1] http://www.nordsc.com/ext/classification_of_http_based_apis.html -- Devon Smith Consulting Software Engineer OCLC Research http://www.oclc.org/research/people/smith.htm
Re: [CODE4LIB] REST interface types
Where at all possible, I want a true REST interface. I recognize that sometimes you need to use POST to send data, but I've found it very helpful to be able to craft URLs that can be shared that contain a complete request. Ralph On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 11:22 AM, Devon dec...@gmail.com wrote: I'm getting ready to write a REST interface to OCLC's crosswalking system. My problem is that I'm not convinced developers actually want a textbook REST interface. I have a hunch that most developers really just want a non-SOAP url they can POST to with a crosswalked version returned in the response body. Given the classifications here [1], I was wondering if people could give some feedback about what interface type they'd actually want to use, what might be too much effort to use, and what they're sure they don't want. Thanks, Devon [1] http://www.nordsc.com/ext/classification_of_http_based_apis.html -- Devon Smith Consulting Software Engineer OCLC Research http://www.oclc.org/research/people/smith.htm
Re: [CODE4LIB] Any Experiences with In-House Training and Development?
Kurt, My team at work subscribed to Lynda.com. It has been invaluable for getting up to speed on new technologies quickly and on-demand. We liked it so much, we suggested to HR that they acquire access for the entire company, which they eventually followed through on. Everyone at MPOW who has taken one of their trainings has had great reviews, I highly recommend checking them out to see if their offerings might meet your needs. Marijane White Media Librarian Gracenote, Inc. On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 7:55 AM, Nordstrom, Kurt kurt.nordst...@unt.eduwrote: Hey folks, had a topic come up here that seemed relevant to the tenor of this group. Would be interested in hearing if anybody else has approached the same situation, and how they went about it. Technology, especially in regards to software development, is a pretty constantly moving target, and there are always new methodologies, tools, practices and models that need to be evaluated and possibly adopted. Or, put another way, developers need to be learning constantly if they're going to stay relevant. Unfortunately, in today's economic climate, the prospect of being able to ship your developer team across the country to attend week-long seminars or conferences or what-have-you is not quite as realistic as it once might have been, especially in the academic and library world. The obvious solution would seem to be implementing some sort of in-house skills training program to keep developers sharp. Possibly something like a mutual book study with followup reports or presentations, or maybe bringing in an outside presenter. I wonder if any of the groups here have implemented anything along these lines, and how have they gone about it? Things that we'd be interesting in knowing, if you've done any sort of in-house training program would be: - Topics: What sort of things did you cover? New languages? New technologies? Programming practices? - Method: What did you use? Books? On-line courses? Videos? Hired speakers? - Budget: Did you have one? What were the costs involved? - Time: How much time did you allocate to training? Were you able to provide study time for those involved in the training? - Evaluation methods: How did you evaluate the effectiveness of the training? Did those involved give reports? Did you do any sort of coding reviews? - Results: Was it worth it? Would you do it again? We'd love to hear from any and all of those out there who have implemented (or attempted to implement) something along these lines. Thanks! -Kurt
Re: [CODE4LIB] Any Experiences with In-House Training and Development?
On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 11:55 AM, Nordstrom, Kurt kurt.nordst...@unt.edu wrote: Hey folks, had a topic come up here that seemed relevant to the tenor of this group. Would be interested in hearing if anybody else has approached the same situation, and how they went about it. Technology, especially in regards to software development, is a pretty constantly moving target, and there are always new methodologies, tools, practices and models that need to be evaluated and possibly adopted. Or, put another way, developers need to be learning constantly if they're going to stay relevant. Unfortunately, in today's economic climate, the prospect of being able to ship your developer team across the country to attend week-long seminars or conferences or what-have-you is not quite as realistic as it once might have been, especially in the academic and library world. The obvious solution would seem to be implementing some sort of in-house skills training program to keep developers sharp. Possibly something like a mutual book study with followup reports or presentations, or maybe bringing in an outside presenter. I wonder if any of the groups here have implemented anything along these lines, and how have they gone about it? Things that we'd be interesting in knowing, if you've done any sort of in-house training program would be: - Topics: What sort of things did you cover? New languages? New technologies? Programming practices? I work at BIREME, a digital library part of PAHO/WHO (Pan-American Health Organization). We've had succesful internal study groups about Python, CouchDB and DSpace. - Method: What did you use? Books? On-line courses? Videos? Hired speakers? We used books and each group was led by one or more developers of our staff who were studying the technology in question on their own before the group was formed. - Budget: Did you have one? What were the costs involved? Only the time of the participants. - Time: How much time did you allocate to training? Were you able to provide study time for those involved in the training? Our study groups had between 6 and 12 sessions, lasting 2 hours each. Participants were supposed to read material and do exercises between sessions. Some didn't. Those who did, did very well. The group sessions and a mailing list were useful to help those who got stuck doing exercises or trying to apply the technology in new test projects while the study group was ongoing. - Evaluation methods: How did you evaluate the effectiveness of the training? Did those involved give reports? Did you do any sort of coding reviews? From 1/3 to 1/2 of all participants effectively started using the studied technology for real tasks within 2 months. - Results: Was it worth it? Would you do it again? Yes. Python and CouchDB have since become established technologies here, and those who did not take full advantage of the study groups are now playing catch up. To increase the chance of everyone actually reading the material each week we want to try shotgun seminars [1] [1] http://www.teachingcollegeenglish.com/2008/02/17/shotgun-seminars/ We'd love to hear from any and all of those out there who have implemented (or attempted to implement) something along these lines. -- Luciano Ramalho programador repentista || stand-up programmer Twitter: @luciano
