3 results
9 - Open Source Discovery using Blacklight at the University of Hull
- Edited by Simon McLeish
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- Book:
- Resource Discovery for the Twenty-First Century Library
- Published by:
- Facet
- Published online:
- 23 July 2020
- Print publication:
- 26 June 2020, pp 129-146
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- Chapter
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Summary
Introduction
Discovery tools and interfaces have emerged through a number of routes over the past 20 years: protocols to search across multiple sources (e.g. Z39.50) have had tools developed around them; library management systems have provided tools to bring to the surface the content they manage; specific library collection indices have been built and had tools developed to provide access to them; and the richness of the web has been surfaced through web search engines. The origins of these discovery tools have frequently informed how they have then evolved and matured, and how they have been adapted to meet changing needs within libraries and beyond. Blacklight is no different: because of its origin as part of a digital humanities project, it has been clear from the start that discovery had to be adaptable if it was to work across multiple types of resource and associated metadata. This starting point has enabled Blacklight to evolve to meet specific needs but always hold at its centre the need to be flexible with regard to what is being accessed and support the discovery needs of end-users.
Blacklight (http://projectblacklight.org) itself is an open source Ruby on Rails engine that provides a discovery interface for an Apache Solr index (Blacklight Project, 2019a). Its flexibility comes from two places:
Apache Solr (http://lucene.apache.org/solr/), built on the underlying Apache Lucene search engine, offers a very flexible way of indexing the content to be searched. It is widely used around the world for many search applications. While Blacklight's default Solr configuration settings will often be sufficient, there is real additional value to be gained from exploiting how Solr indexes resources to meet specific needs.
Blacklight itself can be used to provide discovery across heterogeneous resources. It exploits Solr's capability of being able to index different types of metadata together (acknowledging the need for a mapping between them), and can also display different resources via different templates, allowing for specific views onto resources.
The flexibility is also inherent in the separation of the discovery interface from the underlying data. Blacklight operates by taking a feed from a data source (e.g. a library catalogue) and presenting it in a way that is not constrained by the underlying data structure: the Solr indexing and configuration of views can apply its own structure, so that discovery can focus on user behaviour and needs instead of database tables.
17 - Portals and Web 2.0
- from Section 5 - The future
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- By Chris Awre, University of Hull
- Edited by Andrew Cox
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Summary
Introduction
The discussion of portals throughout this book has revolved around the delivery of portal functionality through the world wide web. Portals have rarely been discussed in the context of client software that needs to be installed and run from the desktop. Certainly individual areas of functionality that are associated with portals – searching, news, information gathering – do have many desktop tools associated with them, but when it comes to drawing them together the web has been the platform of choice.
Bearing this in mind it is sometimes hard to believe that the web has been around for little over a decade in the form that we know and love. In that time there has been enormous change and the pace of this change shows no signs of stopping. From an innovation viewpoint this promises to deliver ever more powerful and flexible services: from a user's viewpoint this advance may be tempered by a concern that what is available today will simply be superseded tomorrow, requiring constant adjustment to the web landscape.
In a presentation entitled ‘The Open Source Paradigm Shift’, and later in a paper with the same title published on his website, Tim O'Reilly picked out a number of changes and developments in the field of open-source software development that had taken place in recent years, and identified some key trends. These were:
• software as commodity
• network-enabled collaboration
• customizability or software-as-service.
To sum these up software can no longer be regarded as the end in itself in building a solution. Software is the commodity that enables services to be developed, often by customizing and/or combining different pieces of software to build something new. This flexible and organic development path is facilitated through collaboration and it is the network that provides the means for that collaboration among developers across the world.
Although these trends were focused on open-source software they also have relevance to the development of the web, and indeed it is quite possibly the web, being the network it is, that has led open-source software in the direction he describes.
18 - Enabling the library in university systems: trial and evaluation in the use of library services away from the library
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- By Chris Awre, Integration Architect, e-Services Integration Group, University of Hull, UK, Ralph Quarles, Assistant Director of Information Technology, Indiana University Libraries, Indiana, USA, Steven Smail, Project Evaluator, Serious Assessments, Lexington, Massachusetts, USA
- Edited by Peter Brophy, Jenny Craven, Margaret Markland
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- Book:
- Libraries Without Walls 6
- Published by:
- Facet
- Published online:
- 08 June 2018
- Print publication:
- 18 May 2006, pp 168-177
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- Chapter
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Summary
Introduction
Universities today operate numerous computer systems to serve the different activities within them. Among other things, administrative systems help to manage enrolment, student records, exams, staff employment and finance. Teaching and learning are often supported through course management systems or virtual learning environments, enabling interaction between staff and students. Research departments use a range of tools to facilitate collaboration and research itself. Libraries have also built up an array of systems over the years to manage the information and knowledge they hold, and to provide access to such collections for users.
Most of these systems have been established independently, with overlap only being established where essential, such as feeding student module choices from student records to course management. Library systems have been particularly independent, with limited interaction or integration with other systems within the institution. Yet, information provided by the library is integral to the learning, teaching and research activities of the institution and, arguably, success in these areas. Providing simpler access to library resources within alternative university systems will enable these to be used more effectively and directly. But is this valuable? Is it what users want?
This paper focuses on two approaches to testing access to the library within non-library university systems and contexts. The Contextual Resource Evaluation Environment (CREE) project sought to gather user requirements to inform technical development. The Twin Peaks project, in contrast, followed a rapid prototyping approach, allowing users to see what functionality might be provided before refining this on the basis of feedback. Jointly, what follows are the comparative stories of how each approach worked out via consideration, in turn, of our respective projects’ origins, background, stakeholders, development processes, evaluative processes and outcomes.
Genesis
The CREE project
As the range and number of search tools available has developed it has become apparent that, despite being beneficial in its own right, each is adding to the number of user interfaces a user needs to know about and understand when searching for information. In parallel, many institutions are creating web environments that seek to provide all the information and application requirements for their staff and students through a local common interface, or are implementing systems through which learning, teaching, research and administrative activity is being channelled; how can external search services feed into these and provide more streamlined access for users?
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