DigitalKoans

The Scriblio project, which was partially funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, has issued "Scriblio MATC Project Final Report." Scriblio is an open source, WordPress-based online catalog and content management system.

Here's an excerpt from the report:

Open source software may be good for the community, but it succeeds because it solves problems for those who use it. For Plymouth, this is an easy question: compared to commercial offerings now available, Scriblio can be said to have saved the University hundreds of thousands of dollars in acquisition, license and support costs. Further, the staff time necessary to develop and support Scriblio for Plymouth’s use is similar to that necessary to support those commercial alternatives. Because ongoing development is limited to the library-specific features not provided by WordPress, the investment required to maintain the software is expected to remain low and Plymouth is likely to continue using and supporting Scriblio as long as it continues to deliver value and solve problems. . . .

Some features, such as development of a hosted solution based on WordPress MU suitable for representing consortia, OAI input and output (including eXtensible Catalog project-specific OAI features), support for additional ILSs, and OpenSearch (and Z39.50) input and output are outside the strict scope of Plymouth’s needs, but would greatly aid adoption of the software and build the community. Softer features, such as the development of reusable sample content and more discussion of best practices in online library services, would also greatly aid the project. Because a rich and active Scriblio community will lower the development costs for all participants, Plymouth is seeking opportunities to begin development on those features and expand the community.

The Public Library of Science (PLoS) has released Topaz 0.8.2.1, an open source digital publishing system that is used to support several PLoS publications.

Read more about it at "Topaz Release Candidate 0.8.2.1."

Version 1.1 of the open-source JHOVE (JSTOR/Harvard Object Validation Environment) software has been released.

Here's an excerpt from the project home page that describes JHOVE:

JHOVE provides functions to perform format-specific identification, validation, and characterization of digital objects.

• Format identification is the process of determining the format to which a digital object conforms; in other words, it answers the question: "I have a digital object; what format is it?"
• Format validation is the process of determining the level of compliance of a digital object to the specification for its purported format, e.g.: "I have an object purportedly of format F; is it? . . . ."
• Format characterization is the process of determining the format-specific significant properties of an object of a given format, e.g.: "I have an object of format F; what are its salient properties?"

The Software Freedom Law Center has published version 1.5 of A Legal Issues Primer for Open Source and Free Software Projects.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The guide, written by members of SFLC's staff, covers a variety of legal topics and their practical application to free software development. These topics include copyrights and licensing, organizational structure, patents, and trademarks.

The DRAMA (Digital Repository Authorization Middleware Architecture) team has released version 1.2.1 of Muradora.

Here's an excerpt from the Muradora home page that describes Muradora:

Muradora is an easy to use repository application that supports federated identity (via Shibboleth authentication) and flexible authorization (using XACML). Muradora leverages the modularity, flexibility and scalability of the well-known Fedora repository.

Muradora's unique vision is one where Fedora forms the core back-end repository, while different front-end applications (such as portlets or standalone web interfaces) can all talk to the same instance of Fedora, and yet maintain a consistent approach to access control.

Read more about it at "Muradora 1.2.1 Release."

Version 1.0 (stable release branch) of the Kete digital library software has been released.

Here's an excerpt about Kete from Katipo Communications' "Kete is Open Source Digital Library and Archiving Software":

Kete is an Open Source application written in Ruby on Rails, released under the GPL. Initial development has been a partnership between the Horowhenua Library Trust and Katipo Communications Ltd. funded as part of the Community Partnership Fund in 2006.

Kete stores, organises, indexes and retrieves all sorts of digital files including Office documents, PDF's, images, videos, audio such as spoken word and music, website links, and html pages/text.

Kete encourages you to make links between different items that enable users to browse your collection. It also faciltates discussion about items and topics, so you can build understanding and foster collaboration.

Read more about it at "Kete 1.0 Release Branch and Upgraded Kete.net.nz."

A beta version of the MODS Editor, which uses the Cocoon Forms framework, has been released by Peter Binkley of the University of Alberta Libraries. (See MODS: Uses and Features for a description of MODS.)

Read more about it at "MODS Editor at Last."

The first beta version of the DSpace 1.5 repository software is now available.

Read more about at "DSpace 1.5 Beta 1 Released."

Bess Sadler has released version .1 of Blacklight, an open source "next generation library catalog written in ruby, using solr as the underlying search engine."

The project team from the Five Colleges, Inc., New York University Libraries, and the UCSD Libraries have released Version 1.1 of the Archivists' Toolkit.

Here's an excerpt from the project's home page that describes the new features of the release:

• Batch import of EAD files: target a directory containing the EAD files to be imported and import all EAD files in the directory
• Batch export of EAD and MARCXML records: from the resource browse screen select two or more resources that you