John Blyberg releases SOPAC2 beta
John Blyberg has released the first public beta of SOPAC2, the social catalog system for Drupal that he started at Ann Arbor District Library and has continued to develop for the newly launched Darien Public Library catalog. SOPAC2 consists of three components, Locum -- a catalog abstraction layer, Insurge -- a service for managing social interaction, and SOPAC2 itself, which is the Drupal module that ties it all together. Of course, a less Drupal-centric evaluator might say tha Locum ties it together and SOPAC2 connects it to Drupal.
As an abstraction layer, Locum also uses connectors to communicate with the catalog, and at this juncture, only a Millennium connector has been created.
The software comes with caveats about its beta status. While this is fine at Darien, it might be (and should be) a production blocker for those libraries where Mr. Blyberg is not employed, as he warns that the database structure will change in the next release.
Ical feed
w00t! This is a major step
w00t! This is a major step forward towards enabling libraries to integrate their catalog system with their website. I had the privelege of attending a meeting on Monday at Darien Library, where John gave a presentation on this module. I came away very impressed with what he accomplished, and with Ann Arbor District Library and Darien Library for making it possible for him to work on it and release it as open source.
It's a testament to the awesomeness of Drupal as both a content management system and a web application framework that John chose to build SOPAC2 as a drupal module. It's also a major contribution to what Dries talked about in his keynote speech at DrupalCon Boston (37 minutes into the video) regarding using Drupal as a vehicle for integrating data from different sources and doing cool stuff with it. So, for example, with this module, you can integrate your library catalog into your website, let patrons of your website add comments, ratings, tags, etc. to the books, movies, etc. in the catalog, and allow all the libraries using this module to share this social data with each other, so that someone visiting one library website can see what other people in their community and throughout the world think about a particular book. Of course, each library will institute its own policy settings regarding what data to import from other sites and what data to share with other sites.
My company is currently in discussion with some of the libraries we've developed Drupal sites for to see if there's any interest in adding this functionality to their website. Obviously, I'm eager to get my hands into the code. If we get the opportunity to do this, I'll keep you posted on what we learn, and of course, will contribute any useful code that's written back to the community. I'm also interested in keeping up with what other folks are doing with this module. I encourage you to use this group and/or the SOPAC2 forum to share your successes, frustrations, and questions.