From the ADR Wiki: Customized Namespace PIDs in Fez and Fedora

January 24th, 2008

Keith’s been working on a draft of a “gray paper” posted to the ADRWiki capturing much of his recent work- with Tim (Systems/Network Admin) as a sounding board – regarding namespace PIDs in Fez and Fedora.

To the Alliance, this means that we will be able to identify at the point of deposit or batch ingest the appropriate institution’s “bucket” of repository storage to store the Fedora object in, which will greatly aid in managing dedicated storage allocations among our members, as well as reporting out content growth trends to our members. We plan to use LC’s Organizational Codes as our namespaces, we think…

It looks like the Fez folks are interested in incorporating Keith’s efforts into their code repository, which marks our first real contribution back to the open source community! Congratulations, Keith!

Posted in Content, Fedora, Fez, Open Source | No Comments »

Robin’s View: My Life as a Super Admin

January 24th, 2008

Things are in high gear behind the scenes here at the ADR. We’re currently configuring the latest release of Fez (2.0), which functions as the web interface for the Fedora repository. The Fez system is what repository members will use to upload and manage their collections, records, and files. Before anyone can upload anything, we need to create templates for the upload process that ensure a minimum standard of metadata is met for each record included.

Those templates are what I’m working on right now, with my brand-new “super administrator” privileges in Fez. The lovely HTML form that contributors will see is generated from much-less-lovely XSDs, or XML Schema Definitions. Right now I’m using my superpowers to clean up the XSDs, taking out troublemakers (unnecessary elements from the Fez defaults) and making the streets safe for the ADR’s minimum required metadata elements, many of which are currently in hiding in the default XSDs.

If anyone is curious about the ADR minimum metadata elements, these come from the Digital Library Federation / Aquifer Implementation Guidelines for Shareable MODS Records. The DLF guidelines break out several levels of adoption for MODS elements, and the ADR uses the second level, which is called the “minimum for doing anything useful.”

This is an underwhelming name for a pretty exciting idea: by meeting this level of adoption, the ADR can

  • maximize the amount of records that are eligible to be entered into the repository
  • offer useful search and discovery for all repository users
  • ensure that records will retain meaningful context even when they’re aggregated/harvested from afar

Pretty super, huh?

Posted in Alliance Digital Repository, Digital Repositories, Fez, MODS, Metadata, Software, User Interface | No Comments »

A New Year, A New ADR…

January 11th, 2008

If you visit the ADR, you will soon see this message:

Moving forward at the ADR…

Updated: Jan 11, 2008

The Alliance Digital Repository is currently unavailable.
Access to the repository will be restored early February 2008.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

If you need immediate assistance, please contact adr@coalliance.org

During the past six months, the Alliance Digital Repository has been in a very active Beta Preview phase. We have worked with our member libraries to identify functional service needs as well as extended the scope of potential uses of the repository service. Now, we are suspending ADR Beta Service while we “re-tool” our operations to support a stable ADR 1.0 release.

ADR 1.0 will include updates to the ADR and ADRLib software, an improved user interface to ADRLib services, and enhanced image viewing capabilities.

Behind the scenes, we are also updating and expanding our end-user documentation, our issue tracking service, and hammering out the licensing and deposit agreements for permanent content submissions to the ADR.

Additional information about the ADR and the Alliance is available on the Alliance Web site.

Thank you and please visit ADR 1.0 in February, we look forward to your feedback!

***

While the ADR service is down, we will be installing and configuring the Fez 2 release candidate, upgrading our Tomcat and Fedora installations, and integrating a new, skinable user interface for our ADRLib service.

We’ll also be using this time to re-prioritize our outstanding functionality needs, update our communication strategies, and outline the next six-months of ADR activities.

 Did I mention we are shopping around what is essentially a strategic growth plan for the service to our stakeholders; gearing up for our role in DPL’s IMLS “Creating Communities” project; meeting with legal counsel to discuss liabilities, risks, and agreement language;reviewing back-up support products and data centers; and looking to finalize a couple of outstanding metadata schema mappings…

It’s a busy time at the ADR and a great way to start the new year. We look forward to all the improvements to the ADR service these activities will bring!

 

Posted in Alliance Digital Repository | No Comments »

Welcome, Robin!

January 10th, 2008

Robin Dean, a University of Denver graduate student will be joining the ADR staff through March 2008 as a practicum supporting her Library and Information Science studies.

The Alliance has happily been working with University of Denver Library and Information Science graduate students completing their 100-hour practicums during the past year, with alum Laura Wutzke being our first student during the Summer 2007 quarter. Some of Laura’s work is reflected in the many ADR Help and Usage guides available in the ADR, as well as ADR documentation available as part of ADR Resources.

Robin will be assisting in the configuration of the new version of Fez, focusing specifically on record creation workflows and templates and content batch ingest preparation, as well as participating in ADR meetings and planning activities. I’ve also invited Robin to be a guest blogger for ADRDirect…offering a different perspective on the efforts underway to develop the ADR service.

Welcome, Robin! We look forward to working with you!

Posted in Alliance Digital Repository | No Comments »

Pipes and Switches

January 3rd, 2008

Recently, the Alliance migrated its Internet connection from two T1s to a 10 MB connection on the Front Range GigaPop’s uPop service, and in the process switched IP addresses for its 20+ servers. All things considered, the move went very smoothly and connectivity performance has exponentially improved. The ADR service experienced one small hiccup in the migration, as an unrelated switch malfunction slowed performance down significantly for all ADR “reads and writes” and initially left us scratching our heads about why the ADR service slowed down when everything else sped up! With a “switch work around” in place, we are now seeing upload times of the ADR being 7-10 times faster than before the uPop migration…and are very pleased!

Posted in Alliance Digital Repository, Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries, Connectivity | No Comments »

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