Greenstone Digital Library

1. Greenstone Digital Library Software:
An Overview
Imran Mansuri
Project Assistant (Library Science)
INFLIBNET Centre
7 March 2011 Prepared by Imran Mansuri 1

2. Agenda
• Introduction : Digital Library Software (DL)
• Greenstone Digital Library Software (GSDL)
• Introduction
• History
• Versions
• Features
• Unique Features
• Technology used
• Example Sites
• Example Collections
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3. Digital Library Software
• The term “Digital Library” refers to a library in
which collections are stored in digital formats
(as opposed to print, microform, or other
media) and accessible by computers
• The digital content may be stored locally or
accessed remotely via computer networks
• Access the books, images are in digital format
• Using Net access to information from
anywhere
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4. Digital Libraries : Features
 Dynamic Electronic Information Systems
 Increase Portability
 Efficiency of Access
 Flexibility
 Availability
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5. Digital Library Software
 Dspace
 Fedora
 Eprints
 Resource Space
 Greenstone
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6. Greenstone Digital Library Software
• The Greenstone Digital Library Software (GSDL)
provides a way of building and distributing digital
library collections, opening up new possibilities
for organizing information and making it available
over the Internet or on CD-ROM
• Developed by the New Zealand Digital Library
Project (www.nzdl.org) at the University of
Waikato
• Distributed in co-operation with UNESCO and
Humanities Library Project, Romania
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7. GSDL : Some Facts
• Current version:
 2.82 and 3.03
 Available from http://www.greenstone.org
• Software suite for building, maintaining, and
distributing digital library collections
• Comprehensive, open-source
• Distribution and promotion partners:
o UNESCO
o Human Info NGO, Belgium
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8. GSDL : History
 1995 - Digital library of Computer Science
Technical Reports. Its established by New Zealand
Digital Library
 1997 - Decision to use the GPL (General Public
License ); name : Greenstone adopted ; Work
with Human Info NGO to produce humanitarian
CD-ROMs
 1998 Apr - First CD-ROM collection released:
Humanity Development Library
 1998 Aug - Greenstone.org website established
 1999 BBC - Collection established
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9.  2000 Apr - Greenstone mailing list started
 Aug - Formally established cooperative effort with
UNESCO and Human Info NGO
 Nov - Distribute software on SourceForge
 2002 Apr - Development of Greenstone3
 Mar - Official opening of the Niupepa collection,
development of the Greenstone Librarian
Interface
 Jun - First UNESCO Greenstone CD-ROM
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10. 2003 - A Java development that became
known as the Greenstone Librarian Interface
2005 Nov - Initial release of Greenstone3
2006 Apr - Greenstone Support Group for
South Asia launched
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11. GSDL : Version
 2000 Feb - gsdl 2.12
 Apr - gsdl 2.21
 Dec - gsdl 2.30
 2001 Feb – gsdl 2.31
 2002 Jan – gsdl 2.38
 2003 Jun - gsdl 2.40
 2004 Feb – gsdl 2.50
 2005 Apr – gsdl 2.60 and in November - gsdl 3.00
 2006 Mar – gsdl 2.70
 2007 Apr – gsdl 2.80
 2008 gsdl 3.03
 Current release gsdl 2.82
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12. GSDL : Features
 Multi S/W Platform
 Multi Lingual Support
 Structured Metadata in XML using DC
 Metadata Extraction
 Plug-ins for Documents
 Full-text mirroring
 Text Level Penetration
 Concurrent & Dynamic Content Development
 Uniform Presentation
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13. Collection Building
• Web and command line mode
• Input collections:
• GSDL server (files)
• Remote (FTP - files, HTTP – website pages)
• Collection input: batch mode, NOT interactive
• Document formats: HTML, PDF, Text, Word
• (Doc, RTF), PS, e-mail, bibliographic
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14. • Support for full text tagging for hierarchical
document browsing
• Automatic text extraction and indexing
‘Plugins’ for different document formats
(HTMLPlug, PDFPlug, etc.) May fail for some
documents!
XML representation – conversion to HTML for
Display
Native document format – storage and display (via
browser plugins, helper applications)
• Data compression support
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15. • Metadata
Automatic extraction of simple metadata
(e.g. Title, date)
Explicit metadata via ‘Classifiers’
Hierarchical (e.g. Subject)
List (e.g. Organization, Author)
Used for browsing and field-based searching
Multi-language support via Unicode
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16. Collection Browse and Search
• Full text search
• Metadata (field) search and browse
• Boolean
• Ranked
• Multi-language support for browse/
search interface
• Search history, search term
• highlighting…
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17. Collection Presentation
• Search results formatting
Format strings in the configuration file
• Home page customization
Using macros
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18. GSDL : Features
 Easy Installation
 Easy Maintenance
 Hierarchy Structure
 Interface Customization
– Front Page Design, Header for the Digital
Library, Collection Icon, Cover Images
 Collection Configuration (Collect.cfg) File
 Scalability, Flexibility
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19. Collection Distribution
• Web
• CD-ROM
 Publish created collections to the CD-ROM
 Windows only
 Two possibilities:
o Install GSDL software to HDD and access
content on CD
o Run GSDL search engine out of the CD!
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20. GSDL : Unique Features
 Incremental Collection Building
 Content Development in 3 different ways
 Good Documentation and Active Mailing
List
 Variety of Plug-ins for different document
Types
 Publishing on CD-ROMs
 Data Compression
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21. GSDL : Technology Used
• Technology used in the current version
– Java 1.6 (Higher)
– Image Magic
– Application Server : Apache 2.2
– GSDL_Linux 2.82 and Win
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22. GSDL : Example Sites
India: Archives of Indian Labour
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23. United States: New York Botanical Garden
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24. International: Global Library Services Network
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28. Some Observations
Strengths:
 Configurability: content extraction for indexing,
presentation layout, metadata for browsing and field-
based searching (little difficult though!)
 Extensibility:
Plugins for content extraction, Unicode for
multilanguage support, source code availability
 Fulltext search on variety of document formats
 XML, Unicode, Dublin Core support
 Data compression
 CD-ROM publishing
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29. Limitations:
 Interactive content updating and management
not possible
 No duplicate identification
 Metadata handling appears to be little complex
 Linux version seems to be more robust than
Windows
 Hangs while processing some documents during
collection building – no way to gracefully handle
this
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30. Current Status
 Strong development work – CS department
at University of Waikato, NZ
 Z39.50 experimental interface now available
 Promoted by UNESCO
 Beginning to be used worldwide Can be
expected to reach CDS/ISIS like popularity
(particularly in developing countries)
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31. Documentation and Help
• Available at: http://www.greenstone.org
 – Software
 – Demo collections
 – FAQ
 – Tutorial materials
• Documentation:
 Installer’s Guide, User’s Guide, Developer’sGuide,
and other reading materials
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32. • Mailing lists:
– Greenstone Users List
– Greenstone Developers List
• Greenstone Documentation Wiki
http://wiki.greenstone.org/wiki/index.php/Gr
eenstoneWiki
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