[adlsngreenstone] From ADLSN: please share your news .. by replying to this resend
John Rose
john.rose1 at free.fr
Sun Mar 27 16:57:28 EEST 2011
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
>
>
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>
>
>
> --
>
> */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>/*
>
>
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>
>
>
>
> --
> /*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>*/
> *//*
>
>
>
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> 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
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