1
introductions
Nicholas Fischio
Development Manager
Kelvin Smith Library of
Case Western Reserve University
Benjamin Bykowski
Tech Lead and Senior Developer
Optiem
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overview
Digital Case opened for business on August 22, 2006
Digital Case is Case Western Reserve University's digital library,
repository and archive
Digital Case stores, disseminates, and preserves the intellectual
output of Case faculty, departments and research centers in digital
formats (both "born digital" items as well as materials of historical
interest that have been digitized)
Digital Case has over 10,000 items of content organized into 13
collections
Users across the globe have accessed Digital Case items over
13,000 times and conducted over 12,000 search queries
Digital Case promotes Open Access through OAI-PMH and Google
Sitemaps
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process
Institutional Repositories (IR) are technical in nature and technical
staff typically drive the process
Kelvin Smith Library (KSL) realized early on that user interface
design is not our forte and we would need professional help with
that effort
Given the importance of Digital Case to the University and the KSL,
we knew that the user interface needed to be the best of breed in
this space
Hired Optiem, a local technology and design firm to lead the design
process allowing KSL resources to focus on the business
requirements and implementation
Optiem realized potential synergies at the outset between Ektron
and Fedora
Started the process by asking our users what they would envision a
digital library to be
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interface highlights
Full-text search capabilities
Browser-based image viewing
Browser-based movie viewing
Integrated reporting feature
Permanent URL assignment
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architecture
Open Source
Fedora - digital repository software
Lucene - full-text search engine
Handle System - persistent URL system
Apache Axis - Web services framework
Commercial
Ektron CMS400.NET - content management software
Aware JPEG 2000 Image Server - image compression software
Oracle 10g Release 2 - database software
Microsoft .NET Framework - application framework
Microsoft Clustering Services - clustering software
Veritas Storage Foundation for Windows - storage software
EMC Legato NetWorker - backup & recovery software
iSCSI Software Initiator - network storage protocol
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architecture
7
discovery
• Research Librarian
focus groups
• Student focus groups
• Competitive research
• Best practices analysis
• Recommendations
• Wire frames
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digital case
Designed to collect and preserve
digital content produced by Case
Western faculty and staff
Needed to make these vast
collections accessible to
researchers and the world at large
via a simple and intuitive interface
9
browse
Browsing the Collections was
designed to aid a visitor by
giving them easy access to sorting
and filtering items
Visitors are able to sort
alphabetically or restrict by format
They may peruse through a collection
with access to Title, Creator, Date, a
permanent URL and a summary
describing each item
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search
The Search employs an optimized
system powered by Lucene
Visitors can search by:
• Key Word Combinations
• Digital Asset Format
• Collection or Collections
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examine
Viewing individual pieces of content
often involved images. The
JPEG 2000 server was used to
dynamically serve images in
the size needed by the requester
Video content is served as
Flash video, employing the same
technology as You Tube and Google
Video and providing for cross
browser compatibility
12
admin interface
The Admin Interface bridges the
management of both Digital and
Website content
Utilizing LDAP, any Faculty
member is able to submit
content, while KSL Librarians
control what content gets
published
Content Added is intuitively
organized in a folder structure
for easy access
13
images and files
Ektron’s Library was already designed
to provide an interface for uploading
and organizing files and images
The Drag and Drop multiple file upload
system provides a convenient and
easy way to move a collection of
files or images, including a Dublin
core Record from the user’s local
machine to the server
14
smart forms
Ektron Smart Forms were used
as the interface for Objects
and Data Streams
Smart Form data is stored as
XML in the Ektron Database
The Dublin Core Record, the
Object Info and any Data
Streams are all stored as XML
data in the Smart Form
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extensibility server
The Ektron Extensibility Server
provided the event hook
functionality around which
Fedora Interfacing could take
place based on the editing,
addition and publishing of CMS
content
XML parsing in ASP.NET
facilitated the communication
needed to translate Smart Form
content into FOXML
Web Services in Ektron allowed
us to dynamically add Smart
Form content based the items
dragged into the System
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custom development
After translation of the content
was complete, calls to the Fedora
API-M service allowed us to add
content to Fedora
Web Services were employed to
convert Images and video to
JPEG2000 and Flash video
formats, while a call to the
indexing service ensured that
Lucene would detect the addition
of new items
Successful addition of content
allowed for the deletion of the
uploaded content, keeping only
the reference info in Ektron
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thank you
Questions?
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