This webinar slide show was intended to update current Variations Digital Music Library users on the status of the Avalon Media System. Avalon is being developed jointly by the libraries of Indiana University Bloomington and Northwestern University, funded in part by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This system is intended to eventually replace the Variations Digital Music Library system. Date: December 10, 2015 Time: 1:30pm - 2:30pm EST Agenda: Project overview and status Demo of current system Anticipated dates of upcoming releases Migrating from Variations to Avalon There will be an opportunity to ask questions.

1. Variations to Avalon Webinar
Welcome!
The webinar will begin shortly.

2. Variations to Avalon Webinar
December 10, 2015

3. Today’s Presenters
• Jon Dunn
– Assistant Dean for Library Technologies,
IU Bloomington
• Phil Ponella
– Director, Cook Music Library, and Director of Music IT
Services, Jacobs School of Music, IU Bloomington
• Tony Tadey
– Lead Multimedia Production Specialist,
Jacobs School of Music, IU Bloomington
• Sebastian Bisciglia
– Instructional Technologist, Jacobs School of Music,
IU Bloomington

4. Today’s Agenda
1. Current status of Variations
2. Avalon project overview and status
3. Demo of Avalon
4. Future Avalon releases
5. Migration plans

5. • Open source digital music library system built
by IU with NSF, NEH, IMLS support
• Used mainly for streaming audio course
reserves
• @IU, current version online since 2005, now
with >30,000 digitized albums; in heavy daily
use

6. Variations = Repository + Tools
Collection
Metadata
Access
Control,
Bookmarks
contentuserinterfaceusers
digitized audio scanned scores encoded scores
faculty students librarians

7. RIP Variations 1996-2016
• Mostly built between 2001-2005
• Many old technology dependencies
– Java Swing, RMI
– QuickTime 7
– QuickTime for Java (deprecated since 2009)
• Old user assumptions
– Desktop client; not web-based (for the most part)
– No support for video

8. Variations Life Support
• Workarounds for removal of QTJava, difficulty
in installing QuickTime in Windows 10, etc.
• Variations will break completely in next Mac
OS X release
– Removal of support for 32-bit Java

9. Avalon: Project Objectives
Goal: Create an open source system to enable
libraries and archives to provide online access to
video and audio collections
• Digital audio/video management and delivery system,
focused on needs of libraries and archives
• Follow an agile, open source development model
• Leverage existing technologies, where feasible
• Communicate and market the project broadly to
increase awareness and grow the community of users
and developers

10. Funding History
• IMLS planning grant
– July 2010 – June 2011
• IMLS National Leadership Grant
– October 2011 – September 2014 September 2015
• Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant
– January 2015 – January 2017

11. Planning Process 2010-2011
“Variations on Video”
• Inputs
– Functionality survey
– Usage scenarios from seven institutions
– Meetings with prospective partners/implementers
– Faculty interviews/observations
• Conclusions
– Broader set of use cases than just music
– Focus on fundamentals of discovery, access, access control
– Focus on library/archive-managed collections
– Focus on integration with other systems
• Metadata, teaching and learning, authentication, authorization, …

12. Why Avalon?
• Existing repository systems don’t work well for
time-based media
– DSpace, Fedora, Digital Commons, ContentDM, …
– Issues: integration with streaming servers; hard to
support time-based navigation; difficulties in
integrating access control
• Existing media systems don’t work well with
repositories
– Kaltura, Brightcove, Ensemble, ShareStream, …
– Issues: focus on short-term access for teaching and
learning; limited metadata and access control
capabilities; integration with preservation workflows

13. Development process
• A single, blended team
• Agile Scrum & JIRA
• F2F at least 2x/year
• Daily video standups, IRC
• Pulling in sysadmins,
testers, other experts as
needed

14. IMLS Project Partners and Advisors

15. Avalon is a Hydra Solution Bundle

16. Avalon Architecture
Avalon Media System
Archival
Storage
Authentic-
ation
LMS,
websites
ILS
Hydrant Rails App
All Users
Desktop,
Mobile
Browser,
Drop box
Search
Browse
View
Ingest
Describe
Manage
Integrations
Collection
Managers
Authoriz-
ation
 Avalon code – consists of Hydrant Rails App and the Rubyhorn
gem. Other pieces are leveraged.
Users
Fedora Solr Matterhorn Media Server
Media Player
(mediaelement.js)
Can-
Can
Ruby-
horn
Hydra
Head
Black-
light
Omni-
Auth

17. Release History
• 0.1 – July 2012
• 0.5 – October 2012
• 1.0 – May 2013
• 2.0 – October 2013
• 3.0 – May 2014
• 3.1 – July 2014
• 3.2 – January 2015
• 3.3 – March 2015
• 4.0 – September 2015
• 5.0 – Expected February 2016

18. Avalon 4.0 Demonstration

19. Avalon 5.0 (Expected 1Q16)
• Updated player
• Content ingest API
• IP-based access control
• Improved structural metadata editor
• More accessibility improvements
• Planning for Fedora 4
• Preparation for SaaS pilot

20. Future Feature Development
• See https://wiki.dlib.indiana.edu/display/VarVideo/Avalon+Release+Road+Map
• Bookmarking, clip making, playlists
• Player API
• Annotation
• Spotlight exhibits integration
• Synchronized transcripts
• Publishing out to external media sites (e.g. YouTube)
• Dynamic adaptive streaming
• Additional access control options
• Reporting and metrics tools
• Internationalization
• More flexible metadata
• Supplemental materials
• PCDM / RDF
• Modularization
• Integration with external tools, e.g. annotation

21. What Variations features are missing
from Avalon?
1. Scores
2. Bookmarks, playlists (in roadmap)
3. Testing/quizzing
4. Access Manager
– supported through other means
5. Timeliner
Interested in collaborators to work on pedagogical
features as a companion project to Avalon.
What features are important to you?

22. What does Avalon have that
Variations does not?
1. Video
2. Support for external authorization
1. LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability)
2. LDAP, Active Directory
3. Embeddable player
4. Standards-based metadata (MODS)
5. Simple search/browse interface (Blacklight)
6. Batch ingest support
7. Hydra/Fedora backend (currently Fedora 3)

23. IU Migration Plans
• Currently working to copy IU Variations audio
data (30,000+ albums) to Avalon
– Going back to masters and re-transcoding
– Using Avalon batch ingest functionality
– Migrating structural metadata from Variations XML
– Reingesting descriptive metadata from catalog via
Z39.50
• Plan to offer Avalon player as alternative option
on Variations access pages starting early in Spring
semester

24. ← Listen in Avalon (NEW!)

25. Migration
• Plan to document IU process and provide
access to tools/scripts developed
• Discuss and share institutional approaches on
avalon-discuss and variations-discuss lists

26. Questions?
• Post them to the chat!
• Website: www.avalonmediasystem.org
• Email list: avalon-discuss@googlegroups.com