Re: [CODE4LIB] Web platform for digitized books
Try looking at our FOSS DL system VuDL, [vudl.org] It is a standalone repository of METS xml and file data that is exposed via OAI-PMH. The indexing and frontend are handled by VuFind [vufind.org] or by any other system capable of harvesting OAI records (theoretically) David Lacy Falvey Library Technology Services Villanova University library.villanova.edu 610-519-7361 -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Yitzchak Schaffer Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2011 4:12 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Web platform for digitized books On 09/08/2011 14:38, todd.d.robb...@gmail.com wrote: The Internet Archive's Book Reader might also fit into your model: http://openlibrary.org/dev/docs/bookreader http://code.google.com/p/iabv/ I recall finding this and thinking it cool, but that it's only a frontend library (i.e. JS/CSS); I'm chiefly interested (at this point) in the backend data storage, metadata, structure, indexing, etc. Thanks to the recommenders of XTF, looks like this is what I hadn't stumbled across before. Calibre seems to be a tool to manage and perhaps share one's personal ebook collection, but not for hosting. Forgot to mention in my initial salvo: I tried toying around with Drupal. We built our main website in D6. I looked at D7 for this, and was left with the impression that the D7 data model and Field API (really the API) is complex enough that it's not worth learning it unless you're going to be developing Drupal apps on a serious and continuous basis. I truly could not fathom the API calls involved in doing anything interesting with content types, etc. Like spending 45 minutes wading through docs and tuts to write a few lines of field-definition code. And not being able to do it again the next day. May as well just create my own tables, but that defeats the whole point of using the Drupal APIs. Sorry for hijacking my own thread into a Drupal rant :) If anybody knows of any magical tutorials, let me know. -- Yitzchak Schaffer Systems Manager Touro College Libraries 212.742.8770 ext. 2432 http://www.tourolib.org/ Access Problems? Contact systems.libr...@touro.edu
[CODE4LIB] Web platform for digitized books
Hello all, Can anyone suggest projects or general approaches for providing access to digitized books on the web? We're not interested in CONTENTdm, Greenstone has worked for us in the past but will not work for our ongoing projects. I don't have real experience with DSpace and such repository products, but they seemed ill-suited for this purpose when I've examined them in the past. Omeka (at last evaluation) is not compatible with hierarchic objects (like books). I am rather amazed that I have not been able to find any FOSS dedicated to this. I am currently favoring the idea of creating a web app using a decent framework (symfony2) designed for this purpose (web presentation of hierarchic text-based entities). Many thanks, -- Yitzchak Schaffer Systems Manager Touro College Libraries 212.742.8770 ext. 2432 http://www.tourolib.org/
Re: [CODE4LIB] Web platform for digitized books
Rephrase to avoid ambiguity: On 09/08/2011 14:22, Yitzchak Schaffer wrote: I am currently favoring the idea of using a decent framework (symfony2) to create a web app designed for this purpose (web presentation of hierarchic text-based entities). -- Yitzchak Schaffer
Re: [CODE4LIB] Web platform for digitized books
lots of folks use XTF (http://xtf.cdlib.org/) for ebook collections cheers, rob On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 2:22 PM, Yitzchak Schaffer yitzchak.schaf...@gmx.com wrote: Hello all, Can anyone suggest projects or general approaches for providing access to digitized books on the web? We're not interested in CONTENTdm, Greenstone has worked for us in the past but will not work for our ongoing projects. I don't have real experience with DSpace and such repository products, but they seemed ill-suited for this purpose when I've examined them in the past. Omeka (at last evaluation) is not compatible with hierarchic objects (like books). I am rather amazed that I have not been able to find any FOSS dedicated to this. I am currently favoring the idea of creating a web app using a decent framework (symfony2) designed for this purpose (web presentation of hierarchic text-based entities). Many thanks, -- Yitzchak Schaffer Systems Manager Touro College Libraries 212.742.8770 ext. 2432 http://www.tourolib.org/
Re: [CODE4LIB] Web platform for digitized books
You want the Extensible Text Framework: http://xtf.cdlib.org/ . The California Digital Library and others have used it for publishing books on the web for years. Roy On Sep 8, 2011, at 11:22 AM, Yitzchak Schaffer yitzchak.schaf...@gmx.com wrote: Hello all, Can anyone suggest projects or general approaches for providing access to digitized books on the web? We're not interested in CONTENTdm, Greenstone has worked for us in the past but will not work for our ongoing projects. I don't have real experience with DSpace and such repository products, but they seemed ill-suited for this purpose when I've examined them in the past. Omeka (at last evaluation) is not compatible with hierarchic objects (like books). I am rather amazed that I have not been able to find any FOSS dedicated to this. I am currently favoring the idea of creating a web app using a decent framework (symfony2) designed for this purpose (web presentation of hierarchic text-based entities). Many thanks, -- Yitzchak Schaffer Systems Manager Touro College Libraries 212.742.8770 ext. 2432 http://www.tourolib.org/
Re: [CODE4LIB] Web platform for digitized books
I am just trying out https://github.com/DDMAL/diva.js/wiki Dual window served on an ADSL line http://www.collection.archivist.info/diva/lucastp1.html Dave Caroline
Re: [CODE4LIB] Web platform for digitized books
Symfony2 is a good choice. I'd like to see something with a clean user experience like Issuu http://issuu.com/ These projects might be related: Calibre http://calibre-ebook.com/ I, Librarian http://www.bioinformatics.org/librarian/ Juan Madrigal Web Developer Web and Emerging Technologies University of Miami Richter Library On 9/8/11 2:26 PM, Rob Casson rob.cas...@gmail.commailto:rob.cas...@gmail.com wrote: lots of folks use XTF (http://xtf.cdlib.org/) for ebook collections cheers, rob On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 2:22 PM, Yitzchak Schaffer yitzchak.schaf...@gmx.commailto:yitzchak.schaf...@gmx.com wrote: Hello all, Can anyone suggest projects or general approaches for providing access to digitized books on the web? We're not interested in CONTENTdm, Greenstone has worked for us in the past but will not work for our ongoing projects. I don't have real experience with DSpace and such repository products, but they seemed ill-suited for this purpose when I've examined them in the past. Omeka (at last evaluation) is not compatible with hierarchic objects (like books). I am rather amazed that I have not been able to find any FOSS dedicated to this. I am currently favoring the idea of creating a web app using a decent framework (symfony2) designed for this purpose (web presentation of hierarchic text-based entities). Many thanks, -- Yitzchak Schaffer Systems Manager Touro College Libraries 212.742.8770 ext. 2432 http://www.tourolib.org/
Re: [CODE4LIB] Web platform for digitized books
The Internet Archive's Book Reader might also fit into your model: http://openlibrary.org/dev/docs/bookreader http://code.google.com/p/iabv/ Tod Robbins MLIS '12 Information School University of Washington
Re: [CODE4LIB] Web platform for digitized books
Ah, a subject near and dear to my heart. :-) Thanks, Yitzchak, for bringing this up. In general, I think you may want to break down what it is you hope to achieve, and see if there *are* projects that will help you get to where you want to go, based on the resources you have at hand. If you need to preserve the images you are creating as part of your digitization process, you should probably be considering using a repository for the storage and preservation of digital objects. If you have the developer resources, and are keen to develop something on your own, there are a few ways to go, using this approach (i.e. put a nice front end on a repository): Fedora Commons has Islandora [1] (Drupal + Fedora), EULFedora [2] (Django + Fedora), and Hydra [3] (Ruby on Rails + Fedora). DSpace has SkylightUI [4] (CodeIgniter + DSpace's SOLR index), and probably more, I've heard of a Joomla front end, but can't seem to find a link for it. There are a few open source page turning interfaces, which I'm sure you'll see mentioned in response to this thread, as well as in the archives. The Internet Archive Bookreader [5] is my personal favorite. And, I might as well do a shout-out here, if anyone out there is thinking of using DSpace + SkylightUI for digital library materials, let's talk. :-) I can also say, for us, here, we have plenty of librarians who needed *something* to put objects in, so standing up a repository was a fairly easy way to address that need, and to do so in a way that they liked and appreciated (DSpace gave them the tools to really dive in to the metadata aspect of their projects). Now, they're comfortable with DSpace, and are beginning to think of the repository as a service--tip of the hat to Stuart Lewis, thanks for telling us this is OK :-) [1] http://islandora.ca/ [2] http://readthedocs.org/projects/eulfedora/ [3] https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/hydra/The+Hydra+Project [4] http://skylightui.org/ [5] http://openlibrary.org/dev/docs/bookreader -- HARDY POTTINGER pottinge...@umsystem.edu University of Missouri Library Systems http://lso.umsystem.edu/~pottingerhj/ https://MOspace.umsystem.edu/ No matter how far down the wrong road you've gone, turn back. --Turkish proverb On 9/8/11 1:22 PM, Yitzchak Schaffer yitzchak.schaf...@gmx.com wrote: Hello all, Can anyone suggest projects or general approaches for providing access to digitized books on the web? We're not interested in CONTENTdm, Greenstone has worked for us in the past but will not work for our ongoing projects. I don't have real experience with DSpace and such repository products, but they seemed ill-suited for this purpose when I've examined them in the past. Omeka (at last evaluation) is not compatible with hierarchic objects (like books). I am rather amazed that I have not been able to find any FOSS dedicated to this. I am currently favoring the idea of creating a web app using a decent framework (symfony2) designed for this purpose (web presentation of hierarchic text-based entities). Many thanks, -- Yitzchak Schaffer Systems Manager Touro College Libraries 212.742.8770 ext. 2432 http://www.tourolib.org/
Re: [CODE4LIB] Web platform for digitized books
On 09/08/2011 14:38, todd.d.robb...@gmail.com wrote: The Internet Archive's Book Reader might also fit into your model: http://openlibrary.org/dev/docs/bookreader http://code.google.com/p/iabv/ I recall finding this and thinking it cool, but that it's only a frontend library (i.e. JS/CSS); I'm chiefly interested (at this point) in the backend data storage, metadata, structure, indexing, etc. Thanks to the recommenders of XTF, looks like this is what I hadn't stumbled across before. Calibre seems to be a tool to manage and perhaps share one's personal ebook collection, but not for hosting. Forgot to mention in my initial salvo: I tried toying around with Drupal. We built our main website in D6. I looked at D7 for this, and was left with the impression that the D7 data model and Field API (really the API) is complex enough that it's not worth learning it unless you're going to be developing Drupal apps on a serious and continuous basis. I truly could not fathom the API calls involved in doing anything interesting with content types, etc. Like spending 45 minutes wading through docs and tuts to write a few lines of field-definition code. And not being able to do it again the next day. May as well just create my own tables, but that defeats the whole point of using the Drupal APIs. Sorry for hijacking my own thread into a Drupal rant :) If anybody knows of any magical tutorials, let me know. -- Yitzchak Schaffer Systems Manager Touro College Libraries 212.742.8770 ext. 2432 http://www.tourolib.org/ Access Problems? Contact systems.libr...@touro.edu
Re: [CODE4LIB] Web platform for digitized books
On 09/09/11 06:22, Yitzchak Schaffer wrote: Hello all, Can anyone suggest projects or general approaches for providing access to digitized books on the web? We're not interested in CONTENTdm, Greenstone has worked for us in the past but will not work for our ongoing projects. I think the problem here is that providing access to digitized books on the web covers a lot of ground and there are multitudes of projects which cover different portions of that ground. There are a projects that focus on digitisation (scanning, OCR, crowd-sourcing transcription, etc). There are projects that focus on packaging (PDF creation, ebook conversion, etc) There are projects that focus on breaking your content out of restrictive formats (PDF, DRM-breakers, .lit-crackers, etc) There are projects that focus on particular kinds of books (novels, papyri, manuscripts, peer-review works, critical editions, childrens books, audio books, comics, etc) There are projects that focus on workflow or searching or archival formats and hundred more variants. In short, the description of your problem is insufficient to recommend a particular project/software/approaches, not withstanding the already proffered recommendations from various parties on the list. cheers stuart -- Stuart Yeates Library Technology Services http://www.victoria.ac.nz/library/
