DigitalKoans

The Data-Intensive Computing Environments group at the San Diego Supercomputer Center has released version 1.0 of the open-source iRODS (Integrated Rule-Oriented Data System) system, which can be used to support data grids, digital libraries, persistent archives, and real-time data systems.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

"iRODS is an innovative data grid system that incorporates and moves beyond ten years of experience in developing the widely used Storage Resource Broker (SRB) technology," said Reagan Moore, director of the DICE group at SDSC. "iRODS equips users to handle the full range of distributed data management needs, from extracting descriptive metadata and managing their data to moving it efficiently, sharing data securely with collaborators, publishing it in digital libraries, and finally archiving data for long-term preservation. . . ."

"You can start using it as a single user who only needs to manage a small stand-alone data collection," said Arcot Rajasekar, who leads the iRODS development team. "The same system lets you grow into a very large federated collaborative system that can span dozens of sites around the world, with hundreds or thousands of users and numerous data collections containing millions of files and petabytes of data—it’s a true full-scale distributed data system." A petabyte is one million gigabytes, about the storage capacity of 10,000 of today’s PCs. . . .

Version 1.0 of iRODS is supported on Linux, Solaris, Macintosh, and AIX platforms, with Windows coming soon. The iRODS Metadata Catalog (iCAT) will run on either the open source PostgreSQL database (which can be installed via the iRODS install package) or Oracle. And iRODS is easy to install—just answer a few questions and the install package automatically sets up the system.

Under the hood, the iRODS architecture stores data on one or more servers, which may be widely separated geographically; keeps track of system and user-defined information describing the data with the iRODS Metadata Catalog (iCAT); and offers users access through clients (currently a command line interface and Web client, with more to come). As directed by iRODS rules, the system can process data where it is stored using applications called "micro-services" executed on the remote server, making possible smaller and more targeted data transfers.

The Digital Library Federation has been given a $18,000 by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation grant to investigate the use of metadata tools to improve access to cultural heritage materials.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The assessment will be done within DLF Aquifer, a Digital Library Federation initiative focused on making digital content—especially cultural heritage materials pertinent to American culture and life—easier for scholars to find and use. The grant will enable a metadata librarian and a library school intern to identify tools that could be used to improve metadata for digital material that is difficult to find and use . . . .

DLF Aquifer has developed a set of implementation guidelines designed to make metadata more effective in aggregations. To assist libraries, archives, and other cultural heritage organizations in meeting the guidelines, DLF Aquifer proposes to offer a range of mapping and remediation services. Although a number of discrete prototypes such as date normalization and topical clustering tools have been developed, these tools are not yet robust enough to be used in production for reliable results. DLF proposes to inventory existing tools and examine the feasibility of developing these tools into production services.

Full scholarships are available for students interested in obtaining a graduate certificate in Digital Information Management from the University of Arizona's School of Information Resources and Library Science. Recently, the Library of Congress honored Richard Pearce-Moses, one of the key figures in the development of the program, by naming him as a digital preservation pioneer.

Here's the announcement:

The University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Science is pleased to announce that a number of full scholarships are still available in the school's graduate certificate program in Digital Information Management. The program is scheduled to begin a new series of courses starting this summer. Prospects have until April 1, 2008 to apply for one of the openings and available financial aid.

DigIn, as the program is known, provides hands-on experience and focused instruction supporting careers in libraries and archives, cultural heritage institutions and digital collections, information repositories in government and the private sector and similar institutions. The certificate is comprised of six courses covering diverse topics including digital collections, applied technology, technology planning and leadership, policy and ethics, digital preservation and curation, and other subjects relevant to today's digital information environments.

For people just starting in the field or considering career changes, the DigIn certificate program offers an alternative path to graduate studies that helps prepare students for success in traditional graduate programs or the workplace. The certificate also provides a means for working professionals and those who already have advanced graduate degrees in the library and information sciences to broaden their knowledge and skills in today's rapidly evolving digital information landscape.

The program is delivered in a 100% virtual environment and has no residency requirements. Students may choose to complete the certificate in fifteen or twenty-seven months.

The certificate program has been developed in cooperation with the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records and the University of Arizona Office of Continuing Education and Academic Outreach. Major funding for program development comes from the federal government's Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), which has also provided funding for a number of scholarships.

Additional details on the program including course descriptions, admissions requirements and application forms may be found on the program website at http://sir.arizona.edu/digin. Or, contact the UA School of Information Resources and Library Science by phone at 520-621-3565 or email at sirls@email.arizona.edu.

The Library of Congress has published Data Center for Library of Congress Digital Holdings: A Pilot Project; Final Report.

Here an excerpt from the "Introduction":

Between May 2006 and October 2007, the Library of Congress (LC) and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) conducted data-transfer and storage tests. At the heart of the project was the issue of trust, specifically how the LC could trust SDSC to reliably store several terabytes of the LC’s data. By what means could SDSC prove to the LC that the data was intact, preserved, and well-cared for? What tests could the LC devise, and what metrics could SDSC produce, to guarantee the integrity of their remotely stored data?

The two main objectives of the project were:

• For SDSC to host LC content reliably and return it intact at the end of the project
• For LC to be able to remotely access, process, analyze, and manage that content . . . .

Inspired by SDSC’s staggering technological potential, the LC had devised several scenarios for the data tests. But ultimately, as the project progressed, the LC opted to keep its goals simple: data transfer, storage, and file manipulation. In the end, both partners were happy with the project’s success. The project also produced lessons and unexpected results, some of which will have deep implications for all cultural institutions regarding transfer and storage of their digital assets.

The University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Science's Graduate Certificate in Digital Information Management (DigIn) program is accepting applications for its second cohort of students, who will begin their studies in the summer of 2008.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Students and working professionals interested in careers in digital information have until Feb. 1 to apply to The University of Arizona's online graduate-level certificate program in digital information management. The program, commonly known as "DigIn," is offered exclusively by the UA's School of Information Resources and Library Science at the University of Arizona.

The program prepares students to build and manage digital collections in a variety of government and private settings, including libraries, archives and museums. Also, the students in the program acquire practical applied technology skills, along with a solid foundation in the theory and strategy underpinning digital collections.

The digitization and creation of collections of books, photographs, museum archives, artifacts, documents, film and video, and other kinds of resources has exploded over the last several years. This has created a demand for individuals with both an understanding of the information management disciplines and also technical knowledge and skills needed to create, manage and support digital information collections.

Those admitted will become part of the DigIn program's second cohort of students, who begin taking courses in the summer of 2008.

The program starts with an intensive hands-on course in applied technology covering the basics of the Linux operating system and also fundamentals of web servers, databases and scripting applications commonly used in today's digital information environment.

In subsequent courses, students are introduced to strategic technology planning and project management; creating, managing, and preserving digital collections; and basic principles of the information professions. Students will learn to apply key concepts and technologies through case studies, applications, theory, and hands-on work with metadata, content management systems and real-life digital collections. Students complete the certificate with a capstone course involving an individual project and electronic portfolio. Many complete the six-class 18-credit hour online course of study in 15 months, and extended options are available.

The DigIn program has been created in partnership with the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records. The certificate is administered by the UA Office of Continuing Education and Outreach. Admissions requirements include a bachelor's degree from an accredited institution and other stipulations of the School of Information Resources and Library Sciences and the UA Graduate College.

DigIn is currently supported with funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which will also be providing a generous number of scholarships for the new cohort of students starting in summer of 2008. For more information, visit the website at http://sir.arizona.edu/digin, or call 520-626-4631.

The National Science Digital Library Core Integration team at Cornell University has released a partial version of NCore, a "general platform for building semantic and virtual digital libraries united by a common data model and interoperable applications," which is built upon Fedora.

Here's an excerpt from the NSDL posting:

The NCore platform consists of a central repository built on top of Fedora, a data model, an API, and a number of fundamental services such as full-text search or OAI-PMH. Innovative NSDL services and tools that empower users as content creators are now built on, or transitioning to, the NCore platform. These include: the Expert Voices blogging system (http://expertvoices.nsdl.org/);the NSDL Wiki (http://wiki.nsdl.org/index.php/NSDL_Wiki); the NSDL OAI-PMH metadata ingest aggregation system; the OAI-PMH service for distributing public NSDL metadata; the NSDL Collection System (NCS), derived from the DLESE Collection system (DCS); the NSDL Search service, and the OnRamp content management and distribution system (http://onramp.nsdl.org).

Because NCore is a general Fedora-based open source platform useful beyond NSDL, Core Integration developers at Cornell University have made the repository and API code components of NCore available for download at the NCore project on Sourceforge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/nsdl-core). Over the next six months, NSDL will release the code for major tools and services that comprise the full NCore suite on SourceForge.

For further information, see the NCore presentation.

The Perseus Digital Library Project has released both the source code for Perseus 4.0 and a significant amount of the project's digital content. The Perseus Java Hopper code is open source; the content is under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States license.

Here's a description of the Perseus Digital Library from the About page:

Since planning began in 1985, the Perseus Digital Library Project has explored what happens when libraries move online. . . .

Our flagship collection, under development since 1987, covers the history, literature and culture of the Greco-Roman world. We are applying what we have learned from Classics to other subjects within the humanities and beyond. We have studied many problems over the past two decades, but our current research centers on personalization: organizing what you see to meet your needs.

We collect texts, images, datasets and other primary materials. We assemble and carefully structure encyclopedias, maps, grammars, dictionaries and other reference works. At present, 1.1 million manually created and 30 million automatically generated links connect the 100 million words and 75,000 images in the core Perseus collections. 850,000 reference articles provide background on 450,000 people, places, organizations, dictionary definitions, grammatical functions and other topics.

Many of the presentations from the Digital Library Federation Fall Forum 2007 are now available.

Here are selected blog postings about the event:

• "Checking Copyright"
• "Highlights from the Fall 2007 DLF Forum"
• "ILS Discovery Interface—DLF Fall Forum—Nov 6, 2007"
• "Internet Archive 20th Century Search—DLF Developers' Preconference—Nov 3, 2007"
• "Mapping Philly"
• "My Presentation on SOA for Libraries at DLF Fall Forum 2007"
• "NCSU CatalogWS API—DLF Fall Forum 2007—Nov. 6, 2007"
• "RESTing the Library"
• "Stanford Library Cyberinfrastructure—DLF Fall Forum—Nov 7, 2007"