Posted by Hanscraft on December 10, 2010 at 3:06am
Hello, I started building a digital library in Drupal for a digital library class. So far I've run into what seems like unending stumbling blocks. I'm using a Dublin Core module that relies on XC to create my metadata fields. However, now I'm having trouble figuring out the best way to create an individual gallery display with thumbnail navigation.
Has anyone here ever created a digital library in Drupal? Do you have any tips, what modules you used, etc.?
Thanks!
Comments
You can start with the
You can start with the modules at http://groups.drupal.org/taxonomy/term/5859 , but really, all you need is Drupal, CCK (and some CCK plugins), views, and your image handling tool of choice to get started.
You might want to consider the Library module if you are going to have multiple copies of items.
The key is to start, as they say in the Wizard of Oz, at the beginning. build your core system with a place to put your books, a way to find them, and a way to display the results.
It depends on what you mean
It depends on what you mean by "Digital library" =)
If you're looking for a repository-like system like DSpace (a bunch of metadata with file attachment(s)) you could do it just using CCK, Filefield, etc. And if you're looking to import items from other places, you could use Feeds and the Feeds XML Parser. I'm currently working on a Feeds OAI-PMH module to bring in information from OAI-PMH repositories (like DSpace installs), but it's not yet ready for mass consumption.
If you're looking more at a "Library catalog"-kind of thing, I second @highermath.
OAI-PMH for Drupal and CCK
The OAI-PMH harvester module already exists and is working really well on http://creatingcommunities.denverlibrary.org. Is there a reason not to use it?
Please see http://drupal.org/project/oai2forcck for more information.
XC Drupal Toolkit is a dependacy. http://drupal.org/project/xc
True, you should look into
True, you should look into XC.
I should say IMO, that while XC is very powerful it does feel rather complex (speaking from having only spent a few hours on it).
By the way, I just published a DEV version of that Feeds OAI-PMH module I mentioned at http://drupal.org/project/feeds_oai_pmh
Duplicate
The Drupal XC Toolkit harvester will be much faster for collecting data and by using OAI2 for CCK, you can store the data into CCK fields within custom content types. Your module seems to be a duplicate of OAI2 for CCK. Why not just use OAI2 CCK?
The Drupal XC Toolkit module is much easier to configure and use instead of the Feeds module. All you have to do in enable it. Feeds however is more complicated because it requires many more steps for configuration.
In addition, great development effort and testing has been put into the Drupal Toolkit XC Harvester performance to make it a reliable and powerful enterprise solution for harvesting XML. It also includes multiple XML Schema options. The project is mature and actively maintained.
OAI2 for CCK turns your site
OAI2 for CCK turns your site into a OAI service provider, not a harvester. From http://drupal.org/project/oai2forcck:
I'm not sure I agree about your comments... if we're going to really discuss features/overlap/etc., we could do it in the respective issue queues for both projects instead of here. =)
cd2cck correction
Sorry, I meant dc2cck http://drupal.org/project/dc2cck and not oai2forcck.
I will start creating issues for your project.
Thanks for the correct
Thanks for the correct project. Let's discuss elsewhere =)
Thanks for all the advice
Thanks for all the advice everyone. This is an original collection with no prior metadata so I won't be needing to harvest and import any previous metdata. I think I can break it down into what I'm looking for in the following questions:
1) Is there a module that will open PDFs in the browser window like CONTENTdm?
2) Any suggestions for best practices about where to place the metadata information? The Creating Communities website has it in the right hand sidebar.
3) Any links to other digital libraries built in Drupal?
4) I'm trying to decide if taxonomy or CCK is the best way to handle tagging. Since this DL has a controlled vocabulary, there is no need for free-tagging. I tried to use autocomplete with oh...this one taxonomy module, but it looks like it was overloading the header.php so the page would not load. This was with only 37 tags.
Thanks!