Dear all, Galen Charlton (2009/04/20 07:07 -0500):
Hi,
2009/4/20 Deependra Tandukar <dtandukar@icimod.org>:
I am new to this list and KOHA. Does KOHA support document attachment and full text indexing? How about multimedia objects?
Koha doesn't support these features directly, although Koha can certainly be used to link to multimedia objects stored in an external content management system. You may be looking for a digital library platform. There are a number of open source digital library systems out there, including Kete (http://kete.net.nz/), Greenstone (http://www.greenstone.org/), Fedora (http://www.fedora-commons.org/).
Many thanks for having mentionned these projects on the list. I just went through all of them and would like to request advices from all of you. The organization that employs to me provides a digital library for visually impaired persons: http://www.bibliotheque-helene.org and http://www.serveur-helene.org Generally speaking, the books are provided to us by their publishers. In general the files they provide are in PDF format. We then convert these files o obtain books in DAISY format, cf. http://www.daisy.org The books are then made available to the blind, either directly in daisy or in other formats which are produced automatically thanks to the files in daisy. The books are delivered so that the readrs cannot copy them freely, thanks to a public-key infrastructure. For the moment, almost all the tools we are using to manage the library are home-made. Technically speaking, there are two components involved. 1. A file server where the books are stored and who performs the necessary conversions between formats, and the encryption of copyrighted material. 2. A webserver which is used as a gateway between the file server and the rest of the world. Now, our project is to build a new version of the library, which would use as much open-source technology as possible. One idea we have is to rewrite the web server part based on a Library Management System such as koha. Given the projects mentionned above and the short description of our library, I have several questions. 1. According to you, is koha the best candidate for building a digital library ? Can you think of other library management systems which would make it easier to handle digital ressources and at the same time use standards such as Marc and Z3950 ? 2. Does the present architecture (web server + file server) look relevant to you ? Would you recommend to base the file server on a tool such that Fedora Commons, or would you rather suggest to use a revision control system or even another content management system ? Let me thank you all in advance for any comment, idea, suggestion or criticism you will share. Everything is welcome so please do not hesitate to share everything that comes to your mind. Best wishes, Sébastien.