Re: [CODE4LIB] Which O'Reilly books should we give away at Code4Lib 2011?
On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 9:16 PM, Cary Gordon listu...@chillco.com wrote: JQuery Cookbook +1 And CouchDB, the Definitve Guide. I believe CouchDB will take the library world by storm, and the sooner the better. A document database is what we need for many of our applications. CouchDB, with its 100% RESTful API is a highly productive web-services platform with a document oriented data model and built-in peer-to-peer replication. In short, it does very well lots of things we need done. -- Luciano Ramalho programador repentista || stand-up programmer Twitter: @luciano
Re: [CODE4LIB] Which O'Reilly books should we give away at Code4Lib 2011?
On 12/14/2010 07:58 AM, Luciano Ramalho wrote: I believe CouchDB will take the library world by storm, and the sooner the better. A document database is what we need for many of our applications. CouchDB, with its 100% RESTful API is a highly productive web-services platform with a document oriented data model and built-in peer-to-peer replication. In short, it does very well lots of things we need done. Amen. Does anyone have helpful things to say about choosing between CouchDB and MongoDB? Thomas Dowling tdowl...@ohiolink.edu
Re: [CODE4LIB] Which O'Reilly books should we give away at Code4Lib 2011?
While both are document stores, there are some major differences in their data model, most notably that mongoDB uses an update-replaces mechanism, while CouchDB allows you to access any version of a document, which brings with it issues of transaction overlaps (who wins?) and having to periodically compact your database. CouchDB uses a REST interface for all interaction; mongo has programming language-specific drivers (although there are also REST interfaces available), which in many cases can increase performance. Their querying approaches are differnet. Mongo is more akin to a define an index and use it when possible at query time. CouchDB is more of a Define a view beforehand and use that view. Oops. I just found a better overview than I can provide, at http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Comparing+Mongo+DB+and+Couch+DB There are lots of other players in this space, too -- see http://nosql-database.org/ - On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 9:12 AM, Thomas Dowling tdowl...@ohiolink.eduwrote: On 12/14/2010 07:58 AM, Luciano Ramalho wrote: I believe CouchDB will take the library world by storm, and the sooner the better. A document database is what we need for many of our applications. CouchDB, with its 100% RESTful API is a highly productive web-services platform with a document oriented data model and built-in peer-to-peer replication. In short, it does very well lots of things we need done. Amen. Does anyone have helpful things to say about choosing between CouchDB and MongoDB? Thomas Dowling tdowl...@ohiolink.edu -- Bill Dueber Library Systems Programmer University of Michigan Library
[CODE4LIB] Code4Lib 2011 -- LinkedIn event
For those of you basking in the glow of a successful conference registration (and that have a LinkedIn account), consider RSVPing your status on the Code4Lib 2011 event created by the conference organizers: http://events.linkedin.com/Code4Lib-2011/pub/448897 -- Michael # Michael Doran, Systems Librarian # University of Texas at Arlington # 817-272-5326 office # 817-688-1926 mobile # do...@uta.edu # http://rocky.uta.edu/doran/
[CODE4LIB] CouchDB and MongoDB (was: Re: O'Reilly books...)
On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 11:58 AM, Bill Dueber b...@dueber.com wrote: Oops. I just found a better overview than I can provide, at http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Comparing+Mongo+DB+and+Couch+DB I was just about to send that link. There are lots of other players in this space, too -- see http://nosql-database.org/ It depends on how you define that space. There are lots of players in the non-relational, AKA, NoSQL space, but in the document oriented space I don't know of any other current contender other than MongoDB and CouchDB. Do you? Comparing Riak, Cassandra and MongoDB is like comparing a golf cart, a fork lift and a fire engine. They are just too different. But i'd say MongoDB and CouchDB belong in the same category, though MongoDB is optimized for performance in cluster, deployed in a single datacenter, with master-slave replication, and CouchDB is designed for easy and reliable distributed deployment with master-master replication among nodes that are not always online. Their conceptual data model is very similar (JSON and BSON), so it's a snap to migrate data from CouchDB to MongoDB (the opposite maybe more complicated depending on the dataset, because BSON has more primitive types than JSON). Where I work [1] we are doing pilot projects with CouchDB, but we also envision using CouchDB as the main repository for content creation, and pushing data to MongoDB for high demand services, if we find out that CouchDB can't handle the traffic. [1] http://regional.bvsalud.org/php/index.php?lang=en -- Luciano Ramalho programador repentista || stand-up programmer Twitter: @luciano
Re: [CODE4LIB] CouchDB and MongoDB (was: Re: O'Reilly books...)
Tongue lodged deeply -- so deeply -- in cheek: http://nosql.mypopescu.com/post/1016320617/mongodb-is-web-scale# NSFW if your co-workers don't like to hear computer-generated swears. :) Cheers, -Nate On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 11:11 AM, Luciano Ramalho luci...@ramalho.org wrote: On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 11:58 AM, Bill Dueber b...@dueber.com wrote: Oops. I just found a better overview than I can provide, at http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Comparing+Mongo+DB+and+Couch+DB I was just about to send that link. There are lots of other players in this space, too -- see http://nosql-database.org/ It depends on how you define that space. There are lots of players in the non-relational, AKA, NoSQL space, but in the document oriented space I don't know of any other current contender other than MongoDB and CouchDB. Do you? Comparing Riak, Cassandra and MongoDB is like comparing a golf cart, a fork lift and a fire engine. They are just too different. But i'd say MongoDB and CouchDB belong in the same category, though MongoDB is optimized for performance in cluster, deployed in a single datacenter, with master-slave replication, and CouchDB is designed for easy and reliable distributed deployment with master-master replication among nodes that are not always online. Their conceptual data model is very similar (JSON and BSON), so it's a snap to migrate data from CouchDB to MongoDB (the opposite maybe more complicated depending on the dataset, because BSON has more primitive types than JSON). Where I work [1] we are doing pilot projects with CouchDB, but we also envision using CouchDB as the main repository for content creation, and pushing data to MongoDB for high demand services, if we find out that CouchDB can't handle the traffic. [1] http://regional.bvsalud.org/php/index.php?lang=en -- Luciano Ramalho programador repentista || stand-up programmer Twitter: @luciano
[CODE4LIB] Opening at University of Illinois for Digital Humanities Specialist
Digital Humanities Specialist 100% Academic Professional Position University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Library Duties and Responsibilities: The University of Illinois Library conducts a variety of activities in support of digital humanities scholarship, including creation, delivery, curation and preservation of a wide variety of types of digital assets and tools. Reporting to the Technical Architect for Repositories and Scholarly Communication, the Digital Humanities Specialist will assist with the planning, implementation and ongoing production of these digital collections and scholarly initiatives, with particular emphasis on project design, digitization workflows, and content and delivery systems. The successful candidate will work across a number of humanities and Special Collections units and will be part of a team of IT personnel that develops and delivers repository and scholarly communication services. Examples of ongoing projects include a robust newspaper digitization program and a triple-decker nineteenth-century American novel digital conversion project, utilizing c! ontent management systems such as Olive, Archon, CONTENTdm, and locally developed databases. In addition, the successful candidate will contribute to the work of the Scholarly Commons in helping to articulate the relationship between new technologies and humanities scholarship to the community of humanists; in advising teaching faculty on the creation of digital objects and providing technical support for use of analytical tools; and in serving as an agent between content providers and the Library's repository. This position is expected to evolve in tandem with the Library's strategic goals and to experiment with new ways of supporting and enhancing the teaching, research and service missions of the University. The scope and responsibilities will shift in accordance with priorities established by the AUL for Information Technology Planning and Policy in consultation with IT staff and digital humanities stakeholders. As an Academic Professional employee, the Digital Humanities Specialist is expected to use investigation time to pursue areas of his or her interest, not directly in support of an immediate program need, in accordance with the University Library's policy on Investigation Time for Academic Professional Employees. Some investigations that originate in this manner may evolve into regular work assignments or production activities. Qualifications: Required: Bachelor's degree in an Information Technology field, such as Library and Information Science or Computer Science, and two years of experience working in a related field; knowledge of or experience with one or more of the following technologies: XML, XML Schema, XSLT, Dynamic HTML; experience in a library setting working with metadata encoded in one or more of the following schemas: MARC, MODS, METS, EAD, TEI, Dublin Core; experience with common digital image formats such as JPEG, JPEG 2000, TIFF, PNG, and GIF; experience writing and implementing Web scripts such as Perl, PHP, ASP, Ruby, Python, or VB Script; the ability to work independently as well as collaboratively in a team environment; excellent organizational skills and a demonstrable ability to manage multiple priorities; the ability to remain conversant with newly evolving technologies; effective oral and written communication skills. Preferred: Master's degree in Computer Science or Lib! rary and Information Science or related information technology field; background or degree in a humanities discipline; knowledge of relational database design principles and SQL; experience with newspaper digitization or other humanities digitization program; experience writing web applications using CSS, XSLT or JavaScript; ability to program interactive, database-driven web applications; experience in a library IT unit or working with library-specific applications; experience in planning and implementing programs or services; experience working with digital conversion vendors; knowledge of or experience with digital preservation strategies; experience in writing grant proposals. Environment: The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library is a leader in the delivery of user services, and active programs in information, instructional, access, and scholarly services help the Library to maintain its place at the intellectual heart of the campus. The Library also holds one of the preeminent research collections in the world, encompassing more than 12 million volumes and a total of more than 23 million items. The Library is committed to maintaining the strongest collections and service programs possible, and to engaging in research, development, and scholarly practice - all of which support the University's missions of teaching, research, and public engagement. The Library employs approximately 100 faculty members, and more than 300
Re: [CODE4LIB] Announcing OLAC's prototype FRBR-inspired moving image discovery interface
This is not my area of expertise ... but if Work in FRBR doesn't mean any particular manifestation, expression or item ... what does it mean? Do Works live in Plato's world of Ideas where abstracted version of things exist in a more real and more true sense than any shifty mimes in our world of sensation and change? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Forms Is it a bit like copyright law -- Works (ideas) can't be copyrighted but manifestations, expressions and items can? Or is Work actually an empty container that doesn't really exist -- even in the World of Ideas hovering over the Earth -- until it is filled with at least one (manifestation, expression, item)? And if so, who chose this particular word? Was something wrong with calling it ... Idea? Or even ... Thing? Why work? Work to me in plain English and even librarianese definitely implies a manifested thing, not the idea of thing that transcends any particular and specific expression.
Re: [CODE4LIB] CouchDB and MongoDB (was: Re: O'Reilly books...)
On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 3:23 PM, Nate Vack njv...@wisc.edu wrote: Tongue lodged deeply -- so deeply -- in cheek: http://nosql.mypopescu.com/post/1016320617/mongodb-is-web-scale# Yeah, that is funny, thanks for the link, Nate. I bet you did not mean any harm, but I hope the joke does not kill the conversation we had just started on the other thread. -- Luciano Ramalho programador repentista || stand-up programmer Twitter: @luciano
Re: [CODE4LIB] Announcing OLAC's prototype FRBR-inspired moving image discovery interface
In my opinion, the best way to understand Work is as the set of all expressions/manifestations that... belong to that Work. Work is sort of a culturally constructed concept, but we know it when we see it. But I think the WEMI heirarchy is best understood as set relationships -- while not explained this way in the FRBR document itself, it is in no way _incompatible_ with the FRBR model, it's just another way to look at the FRBR entities. The more traditional way to look at the FRBR entities is that more 'platonic' approach as you say -- while I think it's ultimately equivalent, I think it's a lot more confusing to talk about platonic things that don't actually exist, then it is to talk about sets of things that do exist. I think you may find this earlier essay I wrote on the same subject helpful: http://bibwild.wordpress.com/2007/12/07/frbr-considered-as-set-relationships/ On 12/14/2010 2:11 PM, Susan Kane wrote: This is not my area of expertise ... but if Work in FRBR doesn't mean any particular manifestation, expression or item ... what does it mean? Do Works live in Plato's world of Ideas where abstracted version of things exist in a more real and more true sense than any shifty mimes in our world of sensation and change? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Forms Is it a bit like copyright law -- Works (ideas) can't be copyrighted but manifestations, expressions and items can? Or is Work actually an empty container that doesn't really exist -- even in the World of Ideas hovering over the Earth -- until it is filled with at least one (manifestation, expression, item)? And if so, who chose this particular word? Was something wrong with calling it ... Idea? Or even ... Thing? Why work? Work to me in plain English and even librarianese definitely implies a manifested thing, not the idea of thing that transcends any particular and specific expression.
Re: [CODE4LIB] Announcing OLAC's prototype FRBR-inspired moving image discovery interface
Susan Kane said: This is not my area of expertise ... but if Work in FRBR doesn't mean any particular manifestation, expression or item ... what does it mean? Do Works live in Plato's world of Ideas where abstracted version of things exist in a more real and more true sense than any shifty mimes in our world of sensation and change? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Forms Sort of. You could also say that it is similar to a meme. A Work is independent of any particular Manifestation, and has no physical form form itself. When a Work is represented in a physical form, that form is a Manifestation. The Work-Manifestation relationship applies equally to all manifestations of the Work. There can be a first Manifestation of a Work (and a library would have little reason to catalog a Work if there were no physical Manifestation), but every Manifestation of that Work is just as much a physical representation of the Work as any other. In many ways, it is indeed similar to the Platonic Ideal. Is it a bit like copyright law -- Works (ideas) can't be copyrighted but manifestations, expressions and items can? Or is Work actually an empty container that doesn't really exist -- even in the World of Ideas hovering over the Earth -- until it is filled with at least one (manifestation, expression, item)? I couldn't really say, and I'm not sure that it matters. Libraries have no need to worry about Works which have no Manifestation, so in practice I don't find it hard to recognize the Work-Manifestation relationship in the materials we actually work with. And if so, who chose this particular word? Was something wrong with calling it ... Idea? Or even ... Thing? Why work? Work to me in plain English and even librarianese definitely implies a manifested thing, not the idea of thing that transcends any particular and specific expression. Idea and Thing are way too vague for my comfort. The word Work is already used with a definition similar to FRBR's. When we speak of Shakespeare's works, we aren't talking about any particular edition, translation, or adaptation. We are talking about the stories themselves, independent of any physical manifestation (unless we are more specific by saying Shakespeare's works in English, etc.). An author working on his masterpiece might call it his life's work. He may wave around the manuscript when saying it, but he really isn't talking about the physical document, but the conceptual content of the material. It will still be his life's work when it comes out in first edition, and third paperback reprint. All FRBR has done is take this definition which already exists in the English language and refine it into a formal structure with other components describing both the physical and conceptual aspects of bibliographic material. Steve McDonald steve.mcdon...@tufts.edu
Re: [CODE4LIB] Which O'Reilly books should we give away at Code4Lib 2011?
Does Pragmatic Bookshelf count as O'Reilly? O'Reilly is their sole US distributor, but someone else may be in charge of them, so I don't know. I'll post 'em anyway. The newly published RSpec Book http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781934356371/ would be a worthy title to include, though it's more Rails-centric than I'd like. I write a lot more non-Rails Ruby than some, I guess. Also, Seven Languages in Seven Weekshttp://oreilly.com/catalog/9781934356593/looks like a good introduction to the specialized art of learning (and evaluating) new and unfamiliar languages. I'll come up with more later. :) On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 6:31 PM, Kevin S. Clarke kscla...@gmail.com wrote: Hi all, If you have particular O'Reilly titles that you'd like for us to ask O'Reilly for, send them to me and I'll put them in our request. Thanks, Kevin
Re: [CODE4LIB] Announcing OLAC's prototype FRBR-inspired moving image discovery interface
McDonald, Stephen steve.mcdon...@tufts.edu wrote: Susan Kane said: This is not my area of expertise ... but if Work in FRBR doesn't mean any particular manifestation, expression or item ... what does it mean? Do Works live in Plato's world of Ideas where abstracted version of things exist in a more real and more true sense than any shifty mimes in our world of sensation and change? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Forms Sort of. You could also say that it is similar to a meme. A Work is independent of any particular Manifestation, and has no physical form form itself. When a Work is represented in a physical form, that form is a Manifestation. The Work-Manifestation relationship applies equally to all manifestations of the Work. There can be a first Manifestation of a Work (and a library would have little reason to catalog a Work if there were no physical Manifestation), but every Manifestation of that Work is just as much a physical representation of the Work as any other. In many ways, it is indeed similar to the Platonic Ideal. Is it a bit like copyright law -- Works (ideas) can't be copyrighted but manifestations, expressions and items can? Or is Work actually an empty container that doesn't really exist -- even in the World of Ideas hovering over the Earth -- until it is filled with at least one (manifestation, expression, item)? I couldn't really say, and I'm not sure that it matters. Libraries have no need to worry about Works which have no Manifestation, so in practice I don't find it hard to recognize the Work-Manifestation relationship in the materials we actually work with. And if so, who chose this particular word? Was something wrong with calling it ... Idea? Or even ... Thing? Why work? Work to me in plain English and even librarianese definitely implies a manifested thing, not the idea of thing that transcends any particular and specific expression. Idea and Thing are way too vague for my comfort. The word Work is already used with a definition similar to FRBR's. When we speak of Shakespeare's works, we aren't talking about any particular edition, translation, or adaptation. We are talking about the stories themselves, independent of any physical manifestation (unless we are more specific by saying Shakespeare's works in English, etc.). An author working on his masterpiece might call it his life's work. He may wave around the manuscript when saying it, but he really isn't talking about the physical document, but the conceptual content of the material. It will still be his life's work when it comes out in first edition, and third paperback reprint. All FRBR has done is take this definition which already exists in the English language and refine it into a formal structure with other components describing both the physical and conceptual aspects of bibliographic material. Steve McDonald steve.mcdon...@tufts.edu
Re: [CODE4LIB] CouchDB and MongoDB (was: Re: O'Reilly books...)
On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 5:57 PM, Tom Keays tomke...@gmail.com wrote: I saw this visualization of where the various nosql databases fit on the CAP Theorem triangle. CAP says there are three primary concerns you must balance when choosing a data management system: Consistency, Availability, and Partition tolerance. Furthermore, you can only pick 2. http://blog.nahurst.com/visual-guide-to-nosql-systems According to this, Riak, SimpleDB, Cassandra and CouchDB all sit on the AP side, whereas MongoDB and BigTable sit on the CP side. Most relational databases sit on the CA side. Very interesting, Tom, thanks for the link. It is interesting to note that although CouchDB and MongoDB sit on different sides of the CAP triangle, their data model, from an application perspective, is very similar. But the implementation of the data model is very different, as Bill Dueber mentioned before, with MongoDB doing updates in-place whenever possible, and aggressively caching writes, both of which increase update speed but also the risk of a corrupt database in case of a crash. CouchDB does neither, so updates are much slower, but its data is always in a consistent state on disk, because it only appends, and appends are guaranteed to be atomic in posix systems. -- Luciano Ramalho programador repentista || stand-up programmer Twitter: @luciano
Re: [CODE4LIB] Announcing OLAC's prototype FRBR-inspired moving image discovery interface
On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 4:03 PM, McDonald, Stephen steve.mcdon...@tufts.edu wrote: I couldn't really say, and I'm not sure that it matters. Libraries have no need to worry about Works which have no Manifestation, so in practice I don't find it hard to recognize the Work-Manifestation relationship in the materials we actually work with. This is a pretty narrow view of what libraries need to worry about. There are lots of Works that have no Manifestations, the antiquities are littered with them (references to things that only existed in the library of Alexandria, etc.). Just because they're not on our shelf (or any shelf) doesn't mean we shouldn't acknowledge them. -Ross.
