[adlsngreenstone] From ADLSN: please share your news .. by replying to this resend

John Kandiri jkandiri at hotmail.com
Mon Apr 4 12:04:26 EEST 2011



Thanks a lot 
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2011 10:24:01 +0200
From: jbwamkuu at gmail.com
To: adlsngreenstone at lists.eifl.net
CC: john.rose1 at free.fr; h.dlamini at unesco.org
Subject: Re: [adlsngreenstone] From ADLSN: please share your news .. by replying to this resend

Dear John and colleagues,
I would like to share presentation I did to the Internal project team members, on the topic that we will cover for toolkit and training modules. 
Kindly provide your comments and if you are interested to be part of this work and wish to  contribute on any topic, please let me know. 

As mentioned earlier we will share the development of the toolkit and  upload all resources plus the version of the toolkit at www.ir-africa.info 

Best regardsAfrica 


On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 12:47 AM, Africa j bwamkuu <jbwamkuu at gmail.com> wrote:

Dear John,

Thanks for informative and educative email,

1. It's amazing that despite working with Greenstone for sometime now, I was not aware of the built-in OAI server facility until your post, that lead to start experimenting it. 




2. Despite the word Institutional Repository (IR), our project, by the way it is six months project, is to promote research output preservation and dissemination, initially among Universities within Africa. We intend to bring the discussion about the tools and how to use them,still under development,  toolkit and training modules to promote the set up of digital repositories. 




3. I therefore would like to point out that your post strengthen my case here internally, I wanted to use the term, Digital Repositories (DR), but because we primarily focus on universities, the arguement seems to favor Institutional Repositories using available platform - Dspace, Greenstone and Eprint. 




So I would surely bring the discussion of the terms - DR and IR, well as the discussion on Greenstone and Dspace - comparison and contrasts on the toolkit and training modules ( Choice Matrix ) this post already enrich the conversation. I will send presentation I am going to do internally (KIT - Project team) for comments and contribution among members here by coming Friday.  





4. Regarding the partnership, yes there is strong link to be explored between ADLSN and KIT programme. I will update you and ADLSN members more on the KIT programme, but we strongly look for the partnership between these two initiatives.  





For now,
Africa
 

On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 3:57 PM, John Rose <john.rose1 at free.fr> wrote:



Dear Africa, Al-Amin,



Thanks for including us on this dialogue.



First of all, congratulations and best of success, Africa, on your new

appointment.



Concerning the question of digital repositories in Africa, we should

distinguish between digital repositories in the broad sense (including

most of the DL collections created under ADLSN - any which are aiming to

preserve and disseminate national or local documentary production) and

institutional repositories concerned with the documentary production of

the host institution (typically but not limited to research publications).



The OAI-PMH data exchange protocol has increasingly been associated with

efforts to insure open access to documents through digital repositories.

The Greesntone team has made substantial efforts to provide fully

functional OAI-PMH facilities, but we do not understand why this feature

is not being widely used. There are to our knowledge only 4 fully

operational, harvestable Greenstone OAI-PMH collections (one in Europe

and two in Latin America and one in the Caribbean) whereas the total

number of harvestable OAI-PMH collections is about 1500 including about

1000 using DSpace). [The ROAR directory (http://roar.eprints.org/) and

the OAI directory (http://www.openarchives.org/Register/BrowseSites)

register, list and provide access parameters for these collections; the

OpenDOAR directory of Open Access Repositories

(http://www.opendoar.org/) does not make OAI access mandatory, and thus

is less useful in identifying OAI-PMH serving sites.]



Greenstone has a built-in OAI server that can be used simultaneously

with the normal web server (i.e. users can continue to access

collections through web pages while others access the data automatically

though machine-driven harvesting requests). All that has to be done to

activate the OAI server is to add a few parameters in the

Greenstone/etc/oai.cfg configuration file. If your collection on the

Internet using Dublin Core then this step should not take more than a

couple of minutes - if you are using another metadata set, then you will

have to provide mapping information from it into Dublin Core or

Qualified Dublin Core. Unfortunately, the documentation is not so great,

but the above cfg file provides guidance and if there are

problems/questions you can ask the Greenstone users list.



Greenstone is unique in that it provides both an OAI server and an OAI

harvesting function (specialized respository packages like DSpace

provide only the server function, and another specialized package is

needed for harvesting). Thus, you can very easily download documents

from OAI servers for your Greenstone collections by selecting OAI in the

Download panel of GLI.



If a large institution is planning to put in place an institutional

repository, and is ready to allocate the necessary human and material

resources, then it will frequently be logical to employ a specialized

institutional repository package such as DSpace. On the other hand, if

the library of a small library or research institution wants to set up

an institutional repository along with other collections (library

holdings, special collections, etc.), then it may well make better

sense, at least initially, to employ Greenstone. Then there are all of

the intermediate possibilities of mixed or evoluative solutions,

combining different DL packages for different collections within a

network (for example of faculties or departments), provided that they

can all exchange information through OAI-PMH. Here one would have to

weigh the advantages of a mixed system relative to those of a

homogeneous system (with the possibility of using built-in distributed

workflow functionality as exists in DSpace).



So my questions are:



1. Does anyone have experience with the Greenstone OAI server (if

applications are running they should be registered on the above

international directories)? For the others, why not not activate the

Greenstone OAI server?



2. For Africa, given your experience with Greenstone, do you consider

that Greenstone could/should have a role in the KIT digital repository

programme? In that case, perhaps possibilities for closer cooperation

between this programme and ADLSN should be explored (your proposals are

very interesting but address primarily ADSLN members as clients of the

KIT programme).



        Best regards, John Rose of Greenstone Team



P.S. Specialists and institutions in the African island countries in the

Indian Ocean (Comores, Madagascar, Mauritius, & Seychelles) have been in

contact with ADLSN from the beginning through the good offices of UNESCO

in Dar Es Salaam; several have developed Greenstone training and support

activities, and hopefully can be more closely involved in information

sharing and cooperation following Al-Amin's initiative.



On 24/03/2011 11:53, Africa j bwamkuu wrote:

>

>     Al,

>

>

> It's very good development, it will very productive and effective if you

> pool together these initiatives within African Digital Library Support

> Network as well ( ADLSN. I also wonder if these oceanic Islands are part

> of this list , if not try to link them so as we expand Africa Technical

> base.

>

> I still encourage members of the list to register on www.ir-africa.info

> <http://www.ir-africa.info>.

>

> Please ignore my earlier email was not intended for the list.

> Regards

> AfricanBwamkuu

>

>     On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 10:32 AM, Yusuph, Al Amin

>     <a.yusuph at unesco.org <mailto:a.yusuph at unesco.org>> wrote:

>

>         Thanks, I will share this information with other countries in my

>         cluster activities, by the way Bwamkuu, we will have more

>         training for two Indian Ocean Island Countries of Mauritius,

>         Seychelles, probably a few pax from Madagascar next month, will

>         keep you posted

>

>         Al-Amin

>

>         ------------------------------------------------------------------------

>

>         *From:* Africa j bwamkuu <jbwamkuu at gmail.com

>         <mailto:jbwamkuu at gmail.com>>

>         *To:* Discussion list for the African Digital Library Support

>         Network <adlsngreenstone at lists.eifl.net

>         <mailto:adlsngreenstone at lists.eifl.net>>

>         *Sent:* Mon, March 21, 2011 12:20:30 PM

>         *Subject:* Re: [adlsngreenstone] From ADLSN: please share your

>         news .. by replying to this resend

>

>         Dear colleagues,

>

>         There a lot to share from my side though may not directly

>         involve collection building in Tanzania.

>

>         1. I would like to inform you that I have moved to Royal

>         Tropical Institute-KIT ( www.kit.nl <http://www.kit.nl/> ) in

>         Amsterdam, Holland as project manager for Capacity building in

>         digital repositories development among academic institutions in

>         Africa. The nature of work is the same, to promote Digital

>         repositories; we develop a toolkit with detailed guidelines on

>         how to set up digital repositories and we will also conduct

>         training workshop in Ghana, Mozambique and likely within East

>         Africa. I therefore request you to visit www.ir-africa.info

>         <http://www.ir-africa.info/> please register ( left side frame -

>         create new account ) once registered you will appear on Who is

>         Who and you will be able to view more information and be able to

>         contribute to toolkit and training modules development. You will

>         also be potential participants or facilitators in training

>         workshops.

>

>         2. Related to Tanzania collection capacity building : We managed

>         to hold two more training workshops for over 40 participants

>         towards the end of 2010. Unfortunately, we were not able to

>         track the development of actual collections from these

>         participants except one,  State University of Zanzibar. The

>         workshop sponsored by UNESCO ( Greenstone ) and INASP ( DSPACE )

>

>         For now.

>

>         Best regards

>         Africa

>

>         On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 5:13 PM, Repke de Vries <repke at xs4all.nl

>         <mailto:repke at xs4all.nl>> wrote:

>

>         Apologies for the resend -  we changed the settings of this

>         email list to have your reply going to this list and not to me

>         personally !! FROM HERE ON A REPLY GOES TO ALL YOUR COLLEAGUES

>         ON THE LIST - just what we want sharing our news, suggestions

>         and questions.  Thanks, Repke de Vries

>

>         Dear all

>

>         early February all of you received a Welcome message when the

>         former  Southern African Greenstone support list "sagreenstone"

>         changed it's name and broadened it's scope and the number of

>         African countries and regions it is involved in [2].

>

>         In that message the African Digital Library Support Network and

>         the National Centres in Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi,

>         (Namibia), Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania and Zimbabwe

>         (re)introduced  themselves [1].

>

>         It would be very much appreciated if this time you could share

>         some of *your* news with this list - like:

>

>         you received your Greenstone training in the last year and went

>         back to your place of work: what happened then?

>

>         If it turned out difficult to put your training into practice:

>         share !

>

>         If you made a start but hit stumbling blocks later on: share !

>

>         If you managed to digitise documents and put them into

>         Greenstone (or DSpace or Drupal or some other solution): share

>         (adding screenshots of your work if you wish) !

>

>         Sharing your news will be very much appreciated by your

>         colleagues.  And some of us with operational services [3] who

>         also are on this list or the colleagues at the ADLSN National

>         Centres (working regionally !) can help with technical and other

>         answers.

>

>         Flood the list with your stories !

>

>         Yours, Repke de Vries, ADLSN

>

>         [1] have a look here:

>         http://www.eifl.net/african-digital-libraries-support-network

>

>         [2] quoting from the second of February Welcome message:

>

>         "..

>

>         The Support Network is an open community of  practitioners and

>         policy

>         makers and has a number of Centres throughout Africa that can be

>         called upon both nationally and regionally.

>

>         (..)

>

>         On the discussion list African practical experience is shared and

>         (technical) support given in creating and giving access to  local

>         digital content. The focus is on open source software with

>         emphasis on

>         Greenstone but also paying attention to other open-source access

>         solutions like DSpace, Drupal and bridges between them.

>

>         .."

>

>         [3] The eIFL FOSS organisation with whom ADLSN works closely

>         together created some nice lists of operational services in

>         Africa and elsewhere:

>

>         for Greenstone: http://www.eifl.net/foss-tools#greenstone

>

>         for Dspace: http://www.eifl.net/foss-tools#dspace

>

>

>         _______________________________________________

>         adlsngreenstone mailing list

>         adlsngreenstone at lists.eifl.net

>         <mailto:adlsngreenstone at lists.eifl.net>

>         http://www.eifl.net/mailman/listinfo/adlsngreenstone

>

>

>

>

>         --

>

>         */Africa Jumanne Bwamkuu

>         Information and Communication Technology Advisor/Trainer

>         Information Reseach & Advisory Services, ILS/*

>

>         */Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), Amsterdam, Netherlands

>         Tel. +31 (0) 20 568 8311 <tel:%2B31%20%280%29%2020%20568%208311>

>         Mob: +31 (0)6 2674 9239 <tel:%2B31%20%280%296%202674%209239>

>         Alternative e-mail: a.bwamkuu at kit.nl <mailto:a.bwamkuu at kit.nl>/*

>

>

>         _______________________________________________

>         adlsngreenstone mailing list

>         adlsngreenstone at lists.eifl.net

>         <mailto:adlsngreenstone at lists.eifl.net>

>         http://www.eifl.net/mailman/listinfo/adlsngreenstone

>

>

>

>

>     --

>     /*Africa Jumanne Bwamkuu

>     Information and Communication Technology Advisor/Trainer

>     Information Reseach & Advisory Services, ILS*/

>     /*Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), Amsterdam, Netherlands

>     Tel. +31 (0) 20 568 8311 <tel:%2B31%20%280%29%2020%20568%208311>

>     Mob: +31 (0)6 2674 9239 <tel:%2B31%20%280%296%202674%209239>

>     Alternative e-mail: a.bwamkuu at kit.nl <mailto:a.bwamkuu at kit.nl>*/

>     *//*

>

>

>

>

> --

> /*Africa Jumanne Bwamkuu

> Information and Communication Technology Advisor/Trainer

> Information Reseach & Advisory Services, ILS*/

> /*Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), Amsterdam, Netherlands

> Tel. +31 (0) 20 568 8311

> Mob: +31 (0)6 2674 9239

> Alternative e-mail: a.bwamkuu at kit.nl <mailto:a.bwamkuu at kit.nl>*/

> *//*

>

>

>

> _______________________________________________

> adlsngreenstone mailing list

> adlsngreenstone at lists.eifl.net

> http://www.eifl.net/mailman/listinfo/adlsngreenstone



--

                ************



                John B. Rose

                1 Bis rue des Châtre-Sacs

                92310 Sèvres, France



                Email: john.rose1 at free.fr

                Alternate email: johnrose at alumni.caltech.edu

_______________________________________________

adlsngreenstone mailing list

adlsngreenstone at lists.eifl.net

http://www.eifl.net/mailman/listinfo/adlsngreenstone



-- 
Africa Jumanne Bwamkuu 
Information and Communication Technology Advisor/Trainer
Information Reseach & Advisory Services, ILS



Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), Amsterdam, Netherlands 
Tel. +31 (0) 20 568 8311
Mob: +31 (0)6 2674 9239


Alternative e-mail: a.bwamkuu at kit.nl

 




-- 
Africa Jumanne Bwamkuu 
Information and Communication Technology Advisor/Trainer
Information Reseach & Advisory Services, ILS

Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), Amsterdam, Netherlands 
Tel. +31 (0) 20 568 8311
Mob: +31 (0)6 2674 9239
Alternative e-mail: a.bwamkuu at kit.nl

 



_______________________________________________
adlsngreenstone mailing list
adlsngreenstone at lists.eifl.net
http://www.eifl.net/mailman/listinfo/adlsngreenstone 		 	   		  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.eifl.net/pipermail/adlsngreenstone/attachments/20110404/a73b171c/attachment-0001.html 


More information about the adlsngreenstone mailing list