12. Is there a benefit to using open source software in digital libraries? What are some of the pros and cons?

     In researching this question, I found a great webpage by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (2005) that lays out the main arguments for and against open source software in a very methodical way. The table below is my take on the arguments presented on the website.

     Ultimately, I believe that there is a benefit to choosing an open source solution for a digital library provided that the choice is based on consideration of the staff, users, and overall computing environment into which it will be deployed.  For example, if there is someone to provide technical support and there are few issues of integration with proprietary formats, then an open source solution is likely to be successful.

Issues	Pros	Cons	Ambiguous
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)	OSS is usually low fee or no fee	Some OSS packages are not compatible with other programs; may limit options for other software choices.	TCO may be lower because of fewer hardware needs, but may be affected by cost and availability of qualified service techs
Features & Quality	Some OSS packages are clones of proprietary ones (e.g., Open Office). OSS may be more reliable (i.e. fewer crashes/bugs) because of large development community. OSS is usually faster, more scalable. OSS is highly customizable, and uses open formats that facilitate file sharing.	Proprietary software is more feature-rich than its OSS counterparts. OSS projects die if development community loses interest in them. Sometimes there is no OSS package for a particular business function. Some OSS packages will not work on proprietary platforms.	Users may not need so many features. Transparency of code may make OSS easier to exploit, but this might be offset by the community of programmers.
Deployment & Maintenance	OSS packages are more modular, allowing users to only use what they need. Managing OSS licenses is much easier because of the reduction of legal risks and anti-piracy measures.	OSS is harder to deploy because of necessary expertise. “The quality and availability of help is proportional to interest and use, especially in open source. The support costs for niche solutions are usually high.”
Users & Migration	Some OSS is very easy to learn.	Switching costs from proprietary software to OSS can be very high. Users may be less inclined to learn a new software package. Achieving integration between OSS and proprietary solutions is often difficult.
Free Markets & Choice	OSS promotes the “commoditization” of software (i.e., makes more software available at lower price). Organization is not locked in to a particular vendor.	Some business processes require proprietary software to run third-party programs.

Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (2005). Open options: Arguments about open source.  Retrieved July 30, 2008 from http://www.netc.org/openoptions/pros_cons/comparing.html

2. List two open source digital library solutions.

“Open source software is here to stay, and it is not just for geeks anymore.” This comforting statement from Tennant (2003, p. 30) is included in an article that reviews several different types of open source software (OSS) packages designed for libraries. Of the four packages he mentions, two are made specifically for digital libraries: DSpace and Greenstone.

Developed at MIT, DSpace is “designed to accept digital file uploads from a large group of individuals [and] allows management of and access to those files” (Tennant, 2003, p. 30). A survey by Jose (2007) of 44 organizations around the world found that DSpace was the most popular choice, particularly among educational institutions.

Greenstone began as a digital library project at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. Like DSpace, it enables users to search and browse digital text and images. In Jose’s (2007) survey, Greenstone is the third most popular OSS digital library package, after EPrints.

References

 

Jose, S. (2007). Adoption of open source digital library software packages: a survey. In Kumar, M. K., Ed.

     Proceedings CALIBER 2007: 5th International Convention on Automation of Libraries in Education and

     Research Institutions, pp.98-102. Chandigarh, India:Punjab University. Retrieved July 12, 2008 from

     http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00008750/01/Sanjojose.pdf

Tennant, R. (2003). Open source goes mainstream. Library Journal, 128(13), p. 30. Retrieved July 12, 2008

     from Wilson Web database.

1. What is a CMS (give at least 2 examples)?

For many organizations, the Internet is the preferred method of delivering content to users. At first, this content was manually coded HTML web pages. These pages required a certain level of understanding of how to program and they had to be manually updated regularly.

As the amount of content increased, and web-based technologies developed, it became possible to automate certain aspects of the webpage development/maintenance process. This is the key goal of content management systems (CMS). They support, by automation, the efficient and effective delivery of content via the Internet (Browning & Lowndes, 2001).

Browning and Lowndes (2001) identify four basic functions of a CMS. The first is authoring, which is the creation of content. One way that a CMS automates this process is by separating the content from the design of the page. Thus, “deskilling the task of putting information on the web . . . reduces the task to no more than ‘filling in the boxes’ on a web form or a word-processor document” (Browning & Lowndes, 2001, p. 3).

The second function of a CMS, workflow, is the editing of content after creation and before publication. The third function is storage. Once content is created, a CMS can save it in a central repository. The benefit of this is that the content can be easily reused or repurposed for future projects. Furthermore, versioning of content allows restoration of lost or corrupted information. Storage can also include breaking content into meaningful components (e.g., title, link, description) that are stored separately. The final function of a CMS is to publish content as a webpage or some other type of electronic object (e.g., PDF, DOC, etc.) (Browning & Lowndes, 2001).

In my job as a library assistant in an academic library, I have learned to use several different kinds of CMSs. For example, the CoURses System, which is based on a relational database and Cold Fusion code, was an in-house development project at the library. The purpose of the system is to dynamically generate a webpage for every course taught at the River Campus of the University of Rochester. The library also uses DocuShare, a proprietary document management system that functions as an intranet for our library staff. A third CMS that I have begun learning this year is Drupal. This is an open source product that will eventually be the underlying framework of the River Campus library’s website.

References

Browning P. & Lowndes M. (2001). JISC Techwatch Report: Content Management systems.Retrieved July 27, 2008 from http://fzki.uniag.sk/11ICT/02Informations/CMSRelated/tsw_01-02_CMS.pdf

It Begins!

Like millions of people before me, I have finally set up my own blog. I wish I could say that I did this completely on my own motivation. Sadly, it took a graduate studies class requirement to finally light a fire under me to get started.

My hope is that once the class is over, I will feel confident enough in my own experience to continue blogging regularly.

If you stumble upon this proto-blog between July and August of 2008 it may seem a little bit dry and academic. This is because it will chiefly consist of posts answering questions relevant to my study of digital libraries in Dr. Lankes‘ class, “Planning and Designing Digital Library Services”, at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies.

After that, any dry and boring posts are totally my own.