eTBLAST

eTBLAST is a unique search engine for searching biomedical literature. eTABLAST engine lets you input an entire paragraph and returns MEDLINE abstracts that are similar to it. This is something like PubMed's "Related Articles" feature, only better because it runs on your unique set of interests. For example, input the abstract of an unpublished paper or a grant proposal into our engine, and with the touch of a button you'll be able to find every abstract in MEDLINE dealing with your topic. No more guessing whether your set of keywords has found all the right papers. No more sorting through hundreds of papers you don't care about to find the handful you were looking for--our search engine does it for you.

"Breaking out of the box: Libraries without walls"

"Breaking out of the box: Libraries without walls"(published in wordsend.org, 6th Oct,2006)

Terry Reese, Oregon State University, “Breaking out of the box: Libraries without walls.”

……Libraries today are suffering from an identity crisis, trapped between the traditional roles of a library and the current expectations of its users. So what do undergraduates want? They want a library that fits into an ipod, they wanna use google and other software they’re already familiar with.

Libraries are their communities’ (esp. small communities’) primary information providers. Libraries have also started facilitating, for example, borrowing from other institutions (interlibrary loan), providing e-resources. Nowadays, libraries are one of the many information providers available to their users.

Libraries’ evolving roles aren’t new. They’ve traditionally evolved with technology. But up until now they were central repositories of trusted information, and now they’re no longer in that center. (vz: or not in the center alone.)

Evolution isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It underlines libraries’ past successes, and it also demonstrates a vibrant information ecosystem of which libraries are now a part. But with evolution comes the necessity to learn a new language. Syndication; blogs and blogging; reviews and user-driven ratings all are parts of that same ecosystem.

Library 2.0: socially driven content; social networking; social bookmarking; personalization. Folksonomies, tagging and tag clouds. This may be scary for librarians, but it’s also what the users want to do. New programming tools: AJAX, API, ruby on rails, Python, LAMP. From there follows: open access, open source, open content. (Metadata wants to be free! Free the metadata!)

Also, Library 2.0 is about web services. Digital library dev’t needs to start with an understanding that the library needs to be more transparent (a sort of business model; for example, label everything so that users know where their information is coming from). Libraries need to look outside the library community for usable technologies. Maybe libraries could start collaborating as groups, and develop software of their own, perhaps starting with some open-source software and customizing it for librarians’ purposes.

How the user sees the library in the digital world. Looking to the past: library -> individual materials. Looking to the present: library [as middleware] -> a complex interconnected lot of materials.

“Unlibrary”: digitization is not enough; accessibility only through the library isn’t sufficient.

In 5 years, in Terry’s library, simple aggregation of resources will not be enough. Databases and websites will be replaced by mechanisms that fetch information into users’ workflows. Single points of access for information will be the goal. Also, “intermediate environments” (mashups, aggregations, workflow – think Spell with Flickr… and, oh my gawd, hamster sudoku! And, holy $#!7, Massachusetts campaign contribution map) will be consumers of library services, just like more traditional users.

An example of how libraries could usefully do that sort of thing is umlaut by Ross Singer. There are also search engine that search multiple resources, whether within or outside the library.

So what can libraries do? They can work with partners: no library, LC or the smallest of them, is large enough to solve these problems themselves. They can also continue to innovate: libraries need to do more development. They should depend less on their vendors and more on developing solutions to their problems themselves. These solutions should be open-source. Finally, libraries can open their current systems to outside users. This is something libraries don’t like to do right now. But libraries expects groups like publishers, Google etc. to provide harvested metadata, but they don’t build this facility into their own systems……

DSpace Installation on Fedora core 3

Fedora Core 3 and CentOS 4 (RHEL 4)

Written by Clive Gould

Menu

1) DSpace 1.2.1 installation procedure
2) Handle Server installation procedure
3) phpPgAdmin installation and configuration
4) Getting Apache to talk to Tomcat using mod_jk2
5) Starting DSpace Automatically
6) Managing DSpace, Tomcat and Handle Server logs
7) Making DSpace available via Apache and HTTPS
8) Changing the contact telephone number
9) Upgrading to Tomcat 5.5
10) Upgrading to DSpace 1.2.2
11) Customising the Web User Interface
12) Virus scanning and establishing a hot backup server
13) Upgrading to DSpace 1.3.1
14) Getting statistics working
15) Modified handle server configuration
16) Upgrading to DSpace 1.3.2
17) Providing OAI access to DSpace
18) Using a commercial SSL certificate
19) Installing LAMS on the same server as DSpace
20) Upgrading to DSpace 1.4 (failed)
21) Re-installing DSpace 1.4 (success)
22) Upgrading the handle server to version 6.2

Integrated Library System (ILS) Migration from vendor-developed ILS to an open-source model

"LibLime, pioneer in open-source solutions for libraries, announced that three more special library collections have migrated to Koha, the first open-source Integrated Library System. Recent migrations include the Native Village of Afognak Library in Alaska, USA; the Alaska Statewide Mentor Project also in Alaska, USA; and the Childcare Resource and Research Unit, a resource room at the University of Toronto, Canada.................. click here"

"...................................One of the largest shared library-automation systems in the U.S. has migrated from a vendor-developed ILS to an open-source model.Georgia PINES (Public Information Network for Electronic Services), a program of the Georgia Public Library Service that provides library-automation services for 252 libraries in that state, recently completed the migration to its new ILS. click here"

Open source ILS goes live!

The Georgia PINES consortium (Public Information Network for Electronic Services) has launched Evergreen, their new Open Source ILS. (live)

After two years of development, Evergreen has gone live. Designed for use by a 252-library consortium with combined collection of 8 million volumes, it represents a considerable move up-market for Open Source ILS software. (Koha's largest installation is the seven branch Nelsonville Public Library in Ohio with 250,000 volumes).

Comprehensive Listing of 250 Semantic Web Tools

Semantic web tools Posted on October 4, 2006 at 10:03 am in Adaptive Information, Semantic Web

The URI link reference to this post is: http://www.mkbergman.com/?p=291

The URI to trackback this post is: http://www.mkbergman.com/wp-trackback

Comprehensive Listing of 250 Semantic Web Tools (updated)

Since my recent posting of 175 semantic Web tools, I got many suggestions from users (thanks all of you!) and also came across another great reference site, Krugle. (You can also use the engine for finding white papers, technical papers and projects, in addition to code. I used the project search with keywords such as “semantic web”, ontology, annoation and the like. There is a useful demo of Krugle as well.)

At any rate, these sources have now enabled me to add another 75 or so new semantic Web tools to the previous listing. The resulting comprehensive update to 250 SW tools is shown below, with the new additions having the colored background.

NAME (URL)	DESCRIPTION
3store	A core C library that uses MySQL to store its raw RDF data and caches, forming an important part of the infrastructure required to support a range of knowledgeable services
4Suite 4RDF	The 4Suite 4RDF an open-source platform for XML and RDF processing implemented in Python with C extensions
ActiveRDF	ActiveRDF is a library for accessing RDF data from Ruby programs. It can be used as data layer in Ruby-on-Rails. You can address RDF resources, classes, properties, etc. programmatically, without queries
Adaptiva	A user-centred ontology building environment, based on using multiple strategies to construct an ontology, minimising user input by using adaptive information extraction
Aduna Metadata Server	The Aduna Metadata Server automatically extracts metadata from information sources, like a file server, an intranet or public web sites. The Aduna Metadata Server is a powerful and scalable store for metadata
AeroText	Entity extraction engine from Lockheed Martin
AJAX Client for SPARQL	AJAX Client for SPARQL is a simple AJAX client that can be used for running SELECT queries against a service and then integrating them with client-side Javascript code
AKT Research Map	A competence map for members of the AKT project
AKT-Bus	An open, lightweight, Web standards-based communication infrastructure to support interoperability among knowledge services.
AllegroGraph	Franz Inc’s AllegroGraph is a system to load, store and query RDF data. It includes a SPARQL interface and RDFS reasoning. It has a Java and a Prolog interface
Alembic	The Alembic Workbench project from Mitre has as its goal the creation of a natural language engineering environment for the development of tagged corpora
Almo	An ontology-based workflow engine in Java Full List :http://www.mkbergman.com/?p=291

OpenBiblio version 0.5.2 Released

OpenBiblio

OpenBiblio is an easy to use, automated library system written in PHP containing OPAC, circulation, cataloging, and staff administration functionality.

OpenBiblio is being developed by Dave Stevens with very limited participation by others. Cataloging, circulation, and patron access catalog modules have been in beta release for the past two years. Stevens acknowledges that he has had to take breaks of several months from the development effort. UNIMARC is supported. The programming languages are PHP and LAMP.

• More flexible checkout privilege system
• User-definable custom fields for members and items (per material type)
• Hold expiration
• Renewal functionality

Download here


FAQ: OpenBiblio Installation here

LAMP(Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) in libraries

We know open access, open source software, and open standards concepts have been increasing demand in library and information science field. Advantages include lower costs, greater accessibility, customization of open source tools and better prospects for long-term preservation of digital information. Most open source softwares tools based on LAMP.

What is LAMP?

In the early 2000, the open source community coined the term LAMP. LAMP stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP (‘P’ can also refer to Perl/Python), an open source web development platform that uses Linux as the OS, Apache as the web server, MySQL as the RDBMS and PHP as the scripting language.

Why should we care about LAMP in libraries?

The widely used library tools like DSpace, MyLibrary, Koha, emilda, Fedora,MyCore, etc ., tools are based on LAMP. If want customize these tools, then your first goal is know about LAMP.

Advantages:

• General available for free of cost
• No need additional licenses for additional user or client
• Lower implementation and support cost.
• Customization: would like a few added features you can add these features yourself.
  

LINUX

Linus Torvalds, a student of the University of Helsinki in Finland, Created Linux in the year 1991.after long journey and further elaborated by a number of developers throughout the world Linux (lee'nuhks/ or /li'nuks/,_not_/li:'nuhks) is a freely available multitasking and multi-user operating system. From the outset, Linux was placed under General Public License (GPL). The system can be distributed, used and expanded free of charge. In this way, developers have access to all the source codes, thus being able to integrate new functions easily or to find and eliminate programming bugs quickly. Linux slowly but steadily (like the Penguin!)has made tremendous improvement, entered into Desktop world and also enterprise computing world.

Variants:

Caldera Linux
Corel Linux
Debian Linux
Kondara Linux
Red Hat Linux
Mandrake Linux
Slackware Linux
SuSE Linux
Turbolinux
Vector Linux
HP-UX,
AIX,
IRIX,
OpenBSD,
FreeBSD

APACHE:

NCSA(National Center for Supercomputer Applications). This server was freely available, came with source code and was licensed under a open modification.Today apache market more than 60%. Market share for Top servers Across All Domains August 1995- September 2006 (Source netcraft)

MySQL

MySQL is a Open Source Software relational database management system that uses SQL. MySQL (pronounced "my ess cue el") that uses Structured Query Language (SQL), the most popular language for adding, accessing, and processing data in a database. Because it is open source, anyone can download MySQL and tailor it to their needs in accordance with the general public license.It is extremely fast and easy to customize, due to its architecture.available for many platforms, including Windows, Unix/Linux and Mac OS X.

PHP

PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language.PHP (recursive acronym for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor") is a widely-used Open Source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML. PHP: 19,491,324 Domains, 1,313,977 IP Addresses

Source: Netcraft

PHP Usage for Sep 2006

Online Reference:

1. http://www.ohio.lib.in.us/staff/atate/lil/
2. http://www.linuxinlibraries.com/
3. http://www.linuxlibrarian.org/forum
4. http://tldp.org/
5. http://www.vuw.ac.nz/staff/brenda_chawner/biblio.html
6. http://www.gslis.mcgill.ca/marginal/mar10-2/opensource.htm
7. http://www.linux.org/
8. http://in2.php.net/tut.php