[Web4lib] simple (web?) app for organizing electronic resources?

[D.H. Mattison]

In my humbled opinion, the simplest and most free out there is the Scout
Portal Toolkit (http://scout.wisc.edu/Projects/SPT/) from our friends at the
Internet Scout Project. It does have some specific system requirements, but
is a LAMP app. I use it for my British Columbia History Portal
(http://bchistoryportal.tc.ca). The backend and presentation are
customizable. It lacks a workflow engine, which would be helpful in a
multiuser (collaborative) environment. Being free, there's no real support
for the product, so you should have someone who's technically proficient to
get the most use out of it and who can resolve any problems that might crop
up.

People also use various kinds of free content management systems, including
wikis and blogs, for these kinds of electronic resource compilations. The
OpenSourceCMS (http://www.opensourcecms.com/) site is a great place to
investigate and actually test these. Not every open source CMS is listed or
available here.

MediaWiki, which drives the Wikipedia, is relatively easy to set up, but the
content creation & editing rules to make it work to your benefit may take
some time and patience to learn. The WordPress blog system is a popular and
very easy application to set up. The metadata aspects of either would also
have to be set up ahead of time, however, just as they would in the Scout
Portal Toolkit. I think the SPT gives you the most flexibility in this area
since the administrator and contributor roles are clearly separated.

Sincerely,

David Mattison
Victoria, BC, Canada
dmattison at shaw.ca 
Tiki Wiki Hut: http://www.davidmattison.ca/tiki
Ten Thousand Year Blog: http://www.davidmattison.ca/wordpress