Putting this here because I didn't see it mentioned elsewhere and it might be useful for others. Thinking about the history of the Islandora solution packs for different media types, the Basic Image Solution Pack was probably the first one written. Displaying a JPEG image, after all, is -- well -- pretty …

Should librarians be learning to how to develop software? This theme has come up in the past few years ((Going back to Karin Dalziel’s 2008 Why every Library Science student should learn programming, continuing through Dianne Hillmann’s keynote at Code4Lib 2011 to this year’s LITA/ALCTS Library …

The internet has survived the great SOPA blackout, and we're still talking about the fallout. Apple made a major announcement of plans to support textbooks on iPads, but there are concerns about the implementation. But the first story this week is about a free service geared towards teaching people how …

After a longer than intended hiatus, DLTJ Thursday Threads is back.

Feel free to send this newsletter to others you think might be interested in the topics. If you are not already subscribed to DLTJ's Thursday Threads, visit the sign-up page. If you would like a more raw and immediate …

Thanks, Noel, and everyone else who made the video editions of Code4Lib 2008 presentations possible. I just had a chance to notice that the video from my JPEG2000 to Zoomify Shim lightning talk was online:

Some updates since the post and the presentation were first done. The code that exists …

This one goes out to all of the MacOS X users out there. (For the rest of you, why aren't you switching?) Perhaps you have seen PocketMod -- the origami-like manipulation of an 8 1/2" by 11" piece of paper into an 8-page booklet.

Example PocketMod, courtesy of the Boston …

The Ohio Library and Information Network (OhioLINK) is seeking an energetic, creative individual to participate in the creation and maintenance of our internationally recognized set of digital library and electronic information services. OhioLINK serves the higher education population in the State of Ohio with service to over 85 colleges and …

There are days that I feel like Tom Cruise. No, I have no idea what it is like to be married to Nicole Kidman or Katie Holmes and I don't have the secrets of Scientology. Let me rephrase: there are days that I feel like Jerry Macguire, the character Tom …

I am pleased to announce the formation of Planet Library SOA -- an aggregation of blog postings and resources related to the application of the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) software paradigm to library systems. You can follow the topic by reading the aggregation website, but the best way to follow along is …

Chris Wilper gave this presentation on behalf of the work that he and Aaron Birkland did to improve the performance of the Fedora Resource Index.

Version 2.0 of the Fedora digital object repository software added a feature called the Resource Index (RI). Based on Resource …

Sometimes the best way to solve a programming problem is to see how others have done the same thing. When that happens, having immediate access to the various search engines helps get you back on track quickly. Here are OpenSearch plug-ins (suitable for Firefox and MSIE7) that will search the …

A while back we created an LDAP directory to consolidate account information for various back-room services, and when we created it we decided to use the individual's e-mail address as the account identifier (uid in LDAP-speak). It seemed like the logical thing to do -- it is something that the user …

This tour is designed to show the overall architecture of a FEDORA digital object repository application within the JBoss Seam framework while at the same time pointing out individual design decisions and extension points that are specific to the Ohio Digital Resource Commons application. Geared towards software developers, a familiarity …

We had a need today to transform an XML file with a custom DTD into Dublin Core; the custom XML file is a datastream in our FEDORA repository and we want to put the Dublin Core XML file back into the FEDORA object as the DC datastream. This took a …

Recently, I was asked to outline a plan for a structured process for software development that maximizes productivity and reduces bugs that reach the user. This was originally an internal OhioLINK document, but the process described is pretty traditional and others might find a use for this as well. You …

We're beginning a new phase of our digital library development at OhioLINK and an oversimplification of one of the consequences of this new phase is that we will be developing more software from scratch rather than adapting stuff that we find out there on the net. (Another consequence of this …