Tag: standards

Open standards and software for bibliographies and cataloging

http://wwwsearch.sourceforge.net/
bib/openbib.html#haystack

Comprehensive collection of pointers to information on open standards and open source software for managing bibliograpies and library metadata. See also oss4lib, the Open Source software for Libraries listing. – SWL

OSS Watch – UK-based Open SOurce Advisory Service from JISC

http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/

Via another great article from Wilbert Kraan at CETIS comes mention of this new service, Open Source Software Watch (OSS Watch), aimed at providing “neutral and authoritative guidance about free and open source software” to the U.K.’s higher education community. They are not focusing on a single type of open source application, but rather the gamut that can be found in the open source world, which makes a lot of sense as the issues in adopting any particular piece of open source software share much in common. This is a welcome addition to the service from OpenSector the news service which focuses more broadly on open source as it applies to the public sector.

Take a look, too, at the ‘style’ links at the bottom of the page – nicely built standards-compliant website that allows you to view the page in multiple formats at the click of a button (my guess would be by using the Cocoon engine). – SWL

Presentations from Library conference on “Metadata and Institutional Repositories”

http://www.rlg.org/events/haveandhold2003/index.html

Nice follow up to the Research Library Group’s sessions back in May this year. I would highlight both the “Mixing and matching” sessions which deal with implementing multiple metadata standards and multiple repository systems, as well as the presentations dedicated to selecting and implementing the open source Fedora system as worth a read. – SWL

ULIST – elearning Web Services Interfaces directory?

http://www.ulist.org/index.htm

This is one of those accidental finds that ended up seeming highly relevant but for which I have no background info and really don’t know if it’s real or not. As the site says “ULIST is a website where Web Services interfaces for learning, training and related applications can be exposed for comment and evaluation and where organizations that require Web Services integration of multiple functions can go to find relevant Web Services interfaces.” The contact email address is from the QuestionMark.com domain, which seems plausible – to me it makes sense for a 3rd party tool builder like Questionmark to champion something this. There are no entries in the directory yet and almost no links to it from the outside world – this seems to be a bit of a proof of concept at this point; still, interesting. – SWL

Developments in Cataloging and Metadata

http://www.oclc.org/research/publications/archive/
2003/hyatt.pdf

This recent paper by Shirley Hyatt provides a good high level summary of the field of metadata from the library perspective, and contains a great quote by Sir Thomas Hyde from 1674 that helps to give the whole issue some historical perspective: “In the colossal labor, which exhausts both body and soul, of making into an alphabetical catalogue, a multitude of books gathered from every corner of the earth there are many intricate and difficult problems that torture the mind.” – SWL

LOM/CanCore-based Open-Source Software Components

http://www.cancore.org/swcomponents.html

Cancore and Athabasca University have announced the release of three new components to assit in the development of learning object metadata and repositories. They are, variously,

  • A LOM Interface or API simplifying the manipulation and transmission of LOM data within and between software systems.
  • LOR Interface or API for communicating with a Learning Object and Metadata Repository.
  • A custom LDAP schema which allows LOM records to be stored and accessed via an LDAP server.

This is great news Both the LOM and LOR APIs are Java bindings, which makes me wonder if this foretells of plans for future interoperation with potential OKI-compliant systems.

UPDATE: I’m in Calgary today for some meetings on educational metadata and got a little more background on this project – it sounds like it is no more or less than it seems, a proof of concept that one can use an LDAP server as a lightweight object repository. – SWL

– via [e-Learning Eclectic]