Blacklight is used as a collection discovery interface by Stanford University Library and by many other libraries and cultural heritage institutions around the world. It provides relevancy ranked search via solr; the user interface can be easily translated to other languages; it provides faceted browse; and it has undergone significant usability testing and design validation. However, the focus of this webinar was on its potential as a unified discovery solution for many repositories.

This webinar is an introduction to Blacklight, the discovery interface software. The webinar focuses specifically on running Blacklight as a unified discovery solution for many institutional repositories. 

Bess Sadler is the guest speaker at the webinar - she is a software engineer at Stanford University, California, USA, having moved in 2010 from the University of Virginia, where she was the Chief Architect for the Online Library Environment. Bess was also a long-standing member of the EIFL-FOSS Advisory Board. After a presentation outlining Blacklight's possibilities and how it could be used to potentially create a unified discovery systemn for a range of repositories, the webinar was opened to participants to ask questions. Q&A was vibrant and lasted over half an hour. Participants discuss issues such as:

• What does it take to index local content from systems like Greenstone, DSpace, ContentDM, or other digital library applications, into a centrally hosted discovery environment?
• What are the export requirements and formats?
• What would be the benefits of having a single discovery interface administered by a central organisation like EIFL or ADLSN to provide access to the collections of many institutions? 

SUPPORTING MATERIALS

• Slides in PDF format of Bess Sadler's presentation

RELATED MATERIALS

• Homepage
• Recording of a general introduction to faceted search, including Blacklight, provided by Boon Low in April 2011.