Adam, Just over a year ago, we were in a similar position to yours, and wanted both a discovery layer and a Fedora-based digital asset management system for Stanford.
We ended up adopting Blacklight for both our next generation catalog [1] and as the UI providing discovery / viewing component of our repository. To complement BL's strong searching / browsing / multi-format object viewing capabilities, we are building a Ruby-on-Rails-based repository front end application to provide the deposit / editing / object management capabilities. This architecture and overall approach is a multi-institutional project called Hydra [2], with Stanford, University of Virginia and University of Hull being the primary contributors at this point. The app makes use of ActiveFedora [3] as the bridge between the Fedora and the Rails apps. By our calculations, this gave us the best of three worlds--Blacklight provides a single platform both for discovery and part of our repository front end, we leverage Fedora for its asset management capabilities, and the Hydra / ActiveFedora components let us do rapid application and flexible application development for our DAM needs. The project is still young, but all the project code is open source, and adopters/contributors/partners are welcome. - Tom | Tom Cramer | Stanford University | tcra...@stanford.edu [1] http://searchworks.stanford.edu [2] www.fedora-commons.org/confluence/display/hydra [3] www.yourmediashelf.com/activefedora/ On Mar 29, 2010, at 12:37 PM, Adam Wead wrote: > Ethan, > > Thanks, yes, I did take a look at this. I have to pick my battles here. A > discovery interface is one of the things that we could buy "off the shelf" > and get a lot of good mileage out of. I'm devoted to open source and I would > love nothing more than to roll our own with Blacklight, but that's more work > on top of the DAM issue. I chose not to delve into the Blacklight option to > save myself more time to focus on the asset manager issue, which is where I > *think* I'll be having to work the most. > > Of course, I'm open to suggestions. Does anyone think it's easier to do your > own discovery layer than a DAM? Potentially, the money we save not buying a > discovery layer could go towards buying a DAM. However, the products we're > looking have some really great interfaces. I think I'd be looking at an > equally difficult challenge trying to emulate some of those features on my > own. > > thoughts? > > -----Original Message----- > From: Code for Libraries on behalf of Ethan Gruber > Sent: Mon 3/29/2010 3:00 PM > To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU > Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] need a plan for what to code > > Instead of purchasing a discovery system, I recommend using > blacklight<http://projectblacklight.org/> > > Ethan > > > > > Rock & Roll: (noun) African American slang dating back to the early 20th > Century. In the early 1950s, the term came to be used to describe a new form > of music, steeped in the blues, rhythm & blues, country and gospel. Today, it > refers to a wide variety of popular music -- frequently music with an edge > and attitude, music with a good beat and --- often --- loud guitars.© 2005 > Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. > > This communication is a confidential and proprietary business communication. > It is intended solely for the use of the designated recipient(s). If this > communication is received in error, please contact the sender and delete this > communication.
