[CODE4LIB] Tools for OAI-PMH support?
I coordinate our statewide cultural heritage collections discovery service, TexasHeritageOnline.org. In the past, we've used a variety of approaches to interoperability, including Z39.50, SRU, and custom APIs, but I'm moving more to simple OAI-PMH, because that's what many of the asset management systems support natively. Right now I have at least five large collections that are built as MySQL databases to which I'd like to add OAI-PMH data provider support. The problem is that many of the tools we've identified, like the OAIBiblio tool and the Oldenburg tool, use PHP4, and the folks I'm working with are running PHP5. There's also a need for multi-table support. Does anybody know of newer tools for OAI data provider support? Good documentation would be a plus . I do have a small budget this year for development, so if needed I could contract this out, but I thought I'd see what's available first. Danielle Cunniff Plumer, Coordinator Texas Heritage Online Texas State Library and Archives Commission 512.463.5852 (phone) / 512.936.2306 (fax) dplu...@tsl.state.tx.us
Re: [CODE4LIB] Tools for OAI-PMH support?
We have implemented an OAI-PMH provider with Java that is available on Google Code. It is designed to make MARC or MARCXML data available, but it could be modified to support other formats. http://code.google.com/p/xcoaitoolkit/ http://www.extensiblecatalog.org/ You might also be interested in our Metadata Services Toolkit which includes OAI-PMH harvester and repository features, a web UI, and can handle any XML format. This would be more of a management tool once all your data is made available via OAI-PMH. Dave -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Danielle Plumer Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2010 11:11 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] Tools for OAI-PMH support? I coordinate our statewide cultural heritage collections discovery service, TexasHeritageOnline.org. In the past, we've used a variety of approaches to interoperability, including Z39.50, SRU, and custom APIs, but I'm moving more to simple OAI-PMH, because that's what many of the asset management systems support natively. Right now I have at least five large collections that are built as MySQL databases to which I'd like to add OAI-PMH data provider support. The problem is that many of the tools we've identified, like the OAIBiblio tool and the Oldenburg tool, use PHP4, and the folks I'm working with are running PHP5. There's also a need for multi-table support. Does anybody know of newer tools for OAI data provider support? Good documentation would be a plus . I do have a small budget this year for development, so if needed I could contract this out, but I thought I'd see what's available first. Danielle Cunniff Plumer, Coordinator Texas Heritage Online Texas State Library and Archives Commission 512.463.5852 (phone) / 512.936.2306 (fax) dplu...@tsl.state.tx.us
[CODE4LIB] Music @ ACRL
Pardon the off-topic cross-posting. I am working to organize a musical event at the upcoming ACRL biennial meeting in Philadelphia, in a downtown venue near the convention on Thursday or Friday evening. I have already recruited 4 other librarian / library-employed musicians. I'm trying to put together a rock / pop / blues / R&B ensemble and we are especially in need of keyboards, maybe horns, and some singers at this point. But we are still open to any and all suggestions. The overarching theme of the event will be "Marc Fields & Bad Data, performing tunes from the Great Librarian Songbook" but we're still open for sub-themes & suggestions. If you have even modest musical chops, are interested in being part of something that will surely be memorable (in a bad or good way I'm not yet sure) and could make it to a rehearsal weekend in the Philadelphia area in February, please let me know. It's your chance to get down with your bad self and really rock the bun-loving set! Sorry about that. Reply directly to me if you want more info or want to volunteer as a performer. * Joe Lucia University Librarian Villanova University joseph.lu...@villanova.edu
Re: [CODE4LIB] Let's go somewhere [was PHP vs. Python...]
-Original Message- >From: Alexander Johannesen >Sent: Nov 1, 2010 9:33 PM >To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU >Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Let's go somewhere [was PHP vs. Python...] ... >So this is not a *dumb* idea, nor is it one of simply saying "it's the >API, stupid." It does goes deeper than that. Not that you / we should >do it, but that's it a good exercise that should have happened. And, >heck, might even have happened. > Alex explains eloquently the problems and possibilities of a DSL for the library world, and semantic maps generally. This is also in answer to some of Patrick E.'s earlier questions about what I am trying to do. >From the readme ( http://www.avantilibrarysystems.com/README.txt ): "Avanti Nova is a general-purpose semantic mapping system. Although first conceived for use as new kind of library catalog, it can be used in any situation to dynamically map the relationships in a set of objects. Some of its core ideas were first used in Avanti MicroLCS, and these were later generalised and extended in Nova. "Nova is firstly a data structure with a scripting language interface to it. Programs are written in Nova to create and manage semantic maps. It also runs as a client-server system, and can be used from other environments like Unix shell scripts. And since it is written in Java, it naturally provides a Java API. "The core idea in Nova is to represent a semantic map as a very large array. This allows for great flexibility in manipulating relationships in semantic maps." The README also has some actual examples of programs in the Nova language as it was a couple of months ago, and all of this stuff works right now, although there is a long way to go. Simple and crude perhaps, but that's how all things begin. I see much potential value in this thing even though much of it could be done with generic tools. I also believe that the generic tools (or anything for that matter) become their own mind-prisons if we rely too much on them. Soon we're speaking and thinking only in Ruby, Python, Perl, Django, Java, MARC or whatever with all their inherent metaphors and limitations. Pick up a hammer and everything starts looking like nails. It even goes into more general things: "Everything is an API." We become like the blind men and the elephant. There are DSLs that serve other domains quite well. Mathematica and R are good examples. Why not a DSL that speaks the language of semantic maps directly? Semantic mapping can be a very large and rich domain. A DSL that seperates the problem from the API, as Alex points out, can handle many problems much more elegantly and flexibly than APIs or something that's tied to a specific tool's way of looking at things. Another line of thought that's a big innovation killer is: "Something like this has been done before, so further work on the problem is not worthwhile." Carried to an extreme we'd all still be clunking around on wheels chiseled from stone slabs today "because they've always been good enough." MARC is a very heavy stone wheel that has become a millstone around the neck of the library profession. My approach in doing this is to not worry or think too much about what has been done before. Start fresh with the basic concepts and what makes sense and try to make something useful out of it, from the ground up. Worrying about what's been done before leads to copying and a lot of original ideas may get rejected. If some wheels get reinvented, so what? Reinventing the wheel often leads to better wheels. Sometimes you have to build something first even if it doesn't solve a specific problem in order to see its value. I am no expert Nova programmer yet because I'm still building the thing. There's no community around this yet. It may be homegrown by a lone developer right now but that's the way many things start. And besides, as far as doing it goes, what the heck? Peter Schlumpf www.avantilibrarysystems.com