Thornton Staples

The Mellon Fedora Project Digital Library Architecture Meets XML and Web Services

The University of Virginia received a grant of

Open sourcing the digital library: Open source digital library tools & infrastructure. Sponsored by SIG DL, SIG LAN, SIG PUB

1,000,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to enable the Library, in collaboration with Cornell University, to build a digital object repository system based on the Flexible Extensible Digital Object and Repository Architecture (Fedora). The new system demonstrates how distributed digital library architecture can be deployed using web-based technologies, including XML and Web services. The new system is designed to be a foundation upon which interoperable web-based digital libraries can be built. Virginia and collaborating partners in the US and UK will evaluate the system using a diverse set of digital collections. The software will be made available to the public as an open-source release.

The Fedora Project: An Open-source Digital Object Repository Management System

Although generalized architectures for digital libraries are still being defined, we now have a good understanding of the components that support the services of a digital library. Many of these components are or are based on open source software - and for good reason. This session details the different areas of a digital library architecture, and demonstrates how open source software is an important component in the digital library. Several open source or community source projects with be detailed in depth, and the panelists will discuss successes and challenges in utilizing open source software in library settings.