[Web4lib] Open Source Federated Searching Software - whatwe would need.

[David Dorman]

At 11:55 AM 06/16/2006, Brian Kennison wrote:
>In message 
><45057232A4AC6444B0F9452131E7446E0391624B at exchange.win2k.tsl.state.tx.us>, 
>"Danielle Plumer" writes:
> >David,
> >
>
> >We've found Index Data to be very good at supporting open standards. I =
> >don't know that I'd consider Keystone as an alternative to DSpace for a =
> >true institutional repository, but it's probably on a par with =
> >Greenstone and streeprints.org as a digital library option.
>
>We use both DSpace and TKL (Index Data).

Just a note of clarification.  TKL and Keystone are the same 
thing.  TKL used to stand for "ToolKit Lite" and now stands for "The 
Keystone Library."

David

>In my opion TKL can
>definitely be used in place of DSpace. A TKL repository can be both an OAI
>service provider and can harvest OAI resources. TKL makes handling multiple
>meta types (Dublin Core, Mods, Mets, you name it) within the same
>repository possible while DSpace's metadata schema is fixed (which is fine
>but maybe not what you're after).
>
>One of the things that's supposed to make an "institutional repository"
>different from other web applications is the need for preservation. TKL
>doesn't make any attempt at this but DSpace (as far a I can tell but I may
>be missing something) doesn't really help much in this area either. Fedora
>is much more concerned with managing bitstreams and I've heard of people
>using TKL for managing their metadata, search and presentation layers and
>using Fedora as the object store. This is something that I would like to
>investigate.
>
>DSpace and TKL are both applications meaning they are designed for a
>particular task but I tend to look at TKL (really the tools and components
>that comprise TKL) more of a framework. You can use this framework to build
>almost any kind of application leveraging you knowledge of how TKL works.
>This is also true of DSpace in leveraging the use of Java server pages (jsp)
>and tomcat but TKL seems more flexible. TKL uses xslt, php, perl but if I
>want to write a function or component in python I can. Along with OAI-PMH
>TKL applications are Z39.50 capable. They have a federated searching option.
>
>While I don't claim to be any kind of expert I find the coding style of all
>the TKL components to be of high quality, clear (well as clear as my little
>brain can make of it) and well documented. They also have pretty extensive
>documentation on their web site about how things work and how to get a site
>up and running. The mailing list traffic is light but responses are very
>friendly and always useful.
>
>I also like the Index Data business model (I wish every vendor did this).
>Their software is open source which is great but they offer their services
>for a fee. There are lots of reasons why you might want to employ those
>services. Being selfish I'd like to see the uptake of this software grow. A
>larger community means more good stuff coming from that community (which
>helps me). I think TKL and Index Data in general deserve a bigger community.
>
>--
>Brian Kennison
>Systems
>Haas Library
>Western Connecticut State University
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David Dorman
US Marketing Manager, Index Data
52 Whitman Ave.
West Hartford, Connecticut  06107
dorman at indexdata.com
860-389-1568 or toll free 866-489-1568
fax: 860-561-5613

INDEX DATA Means Business
for Open Source and Open Standards
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