Open Source Programs for the Reference Librarian When your budget is more limited than your vision LITA Open Source Systems Interest Group.

Open Source Programs for the Reference Librarian

When your budget is more limited than your vision

LITA Open Source Systems Interest Group

Open Source Systems Interest Group

Our interest group meeting is on Monday from 1:30 – 3:30 in the Loews New Orleans, Beauregard Room

Presentation Goals

To encourage Reference / Instruction Librarians to build collaborative partnerships with Systems people

To promote the use of Open Source in libraries and encourage development / modification of Open Source for libraries

To introduce and review a number of Open Source products that might be useful for Reference

What is Open Source?

Free redistribution Source code open and distributed, enabling

modification Modifications of the source code and

derivations are encouraged Peer Review model – Many developers

improving and modifying products

Things to keep in mind

Just because Open Source is “free” doesn’t mean that it doesn’t require staff time to implement and maintain it

Many Open Source programs require particular operating environments and additional software (e.g. UNIX, Linux, PHP, MySQL, etc.)

Using Open Source requires Systems support

Important Sites

http://www.opensource.org http://sourceforge.net http://www.oss4lib.org

Presenters

Ranti Junus, Systems Librarian at Michigan State University – iVia [http://ivia.ucr.edu]

Teria Curry, Distance Librarian at Johns Hopkins University – LibX [http://libx.org]

Kirsten Allen, Reference/Instruction Librarian at American University – Jabber [http://www.jabber.org] and Gaim [http://gaim.sourceforge.net]

Presenters Cont.

Mary Evangeliste, Information Commons Training Coordinator at University of Arizona – MediaWiki [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki]

George Harmon, Systems Librarian at Florida State University – JabRef [http://jabref.sourceforge.net]

iVia virtual library software

an open source internet portal and

virtual library system

-Ranti Junus, Systems Librarian

Michigan State University

what is iVia

a software package for building virtual libraries of Internet resources.

use it to build a database of meta data records, either manually or by employing its many record building, meta data assignment and focused crawling tools.

the virtual library itself is searchable and browsable through a standard Web browser.

iVia developer

developed by the INFOMINE Project at the Library of the University of California, Riverside as the engine for the INFOMINE Scholarly Internet Resource Collections (http://infomine.ucr.edu/).

free software, distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

http://ivia.ucr.edu

infomine (http://infomine.ucr.edu)

search & browse

simple search advanced search: various options for search

and result display results: relevance ranking by default

title author, subject (LCSH), subject discipline keyword description full text

browse – keyword: all categories

browse – keyword: by category

search - advanced

search – by category

search – advanced: search options

origins expert created or expert + web robot

resource access fee based, free, both

type of resources (data sets, electronic

journals, gov.documents, etc.)

search – advanced: result options

result display title only

title and short paragraph

ranking relevancy

by title: alphabetical, ignoring stop words (The,

A/An)

number of results per page

search – advanced: options

search – by category: options

search result – all categories

search result – by category

search result – settings

meta data

meta data

back end – administration

categories creation - manual

import records from OAI-PMH and MARC

remote service capability automatically assign meta data service to URL

expert-guided crawler service to find new

resources

delete or replace a set of results

'Adders' website tools

to help librarians discover and describe Internet resources adding and editing records

suggestions for a new record

url checker

to build Internet portals and virtual libraries

Adders homepage (http://ivia.ucr.edu/manuals/iVia/5.0.0/adders_manual/adders_homepage.shtml)

systems & software installation

apache web server

mysql database

linux operating system; iVia is tested on

debian, redhat, and suse

latest version: 5.0.0 pre 25 (as of June 20th,

2006)

straight forward installation using their

installation scripts

where to find

download from their site

(http://ivia.ucr.edu/download/)

extensive manual – read carefully!

(http://ivia.ucr.edu/manuals/)

LibX: A Firefox Extension for Libraries

Teria Curry, Distance Librarian

Johns Hopkins University

LibX: Background

LibX is a localized Firefox extension that provides direct access to your library's resources via the Firefox browser

Joint project of the Virginia Tech Newman Library and the VT Department of Computer Science. 

For more information go to www.libx.org

LibX: System Features

Host code at libx.org server or institutional server

Toolbar installed on Client-side Direct access to OPAC Direct access to OpenURL Resolver Integration of Google Scholar Support for embedded cues

From a Reference Point-of-View

Great for digital Natives Toolbar can be customized to meet user

needs Bridges the Internet to the Library Directs users back to full-text content

Open Source

Chat Programs

Kirsten Allen

Reference and Instruction Librarian

American University

Jabber Open Source Consumer IM Service

GaimOpen Source Multi-protocol IM Client

Jabber

www.jabber.org

Jabber is set of streaming XML protocols; runs on Windows, Linux, MacOS X

Jabber clients can chat with commercial IM clients including Yahoo, MSN, Google talk and AOL; requires setting up gateways/ transports on specific jabber servers

Jabber continued...

Numerous clients to choose from(http://www.jabber.org/software/clients.shtml)

Can set up in-library system using own server or can connect to Jabber public servers (www.xmpp.net)

Installation requires knowledge of institution’s network infrastructure

Pros/Cons of Jabber

Use by millions guarantees protocols are continually improved

Not recommend for libraries without systems support familiar with XML

Advertising free – works with other commercial services

Gaim

gaim.sourceforge.net

Allows users to open multiple IM clients in one interface and monitor chat sessions concurrently; AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber and more

Runs on a Windows, MacOS X, and Linux

Gaim continued…

For libraries looking to provide IM reference service using multiple IM clients

Easily installed on computer; new beta versions available at website

Supports many of the features included in other IM clients; plug-ins available for other features

Pros/Cons of Gaim

Products free of advertising

Being updated by programmers

Does have some bugs – http://gaim.sourceforge.net/win32/index.php#bugs

Using the software behind Wikipedia to create a dynamic reference F.A.Q. and social networking space.

Mary F. EvangelisteTraining Coordinator-Information CommonsUndergraduate Services TeamUniversity of Arizona, Main Library

MediaWiki

James A.H. Murray, Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, in his "Scriptorium" (ca. 1880).http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/archives/vol22/vol22_iss2/Oxford_Dictionary_Online.html

My dilemma-Training for Information Commons- complicated and messy…

open almost 24/7over 250 computersover 50 different software programs

including Photoshop, dream weaver, Illustrator etc.

over 400 databasesover 20 students and 15 staff members

NEED CONSTANT TRAINING!

What we use now: The Enquirer

Limitation: Dreamweaver

only one contributor no shared knowledge no social aspect difficult to get students engaged

Advantages :Wikimedia-Reference F.A.Q.

all staff and student can contribute web based –updates from anywhere at any

time no master file, but always archived no software needs share training modules without fear of edits could create dynamic announcement for

training with images

Example of Wiki: advantages

Advantages :social networking

use protected area of wiki for social exchanges

updates on campus more cultural and academic information photos, image galleries

Possible cons:

hard to make new pages first creator would need to anticipate future

needs unless it is replacing something-hard to get

buy in age old problem-do the categories mean

anything Definite purpose and use

Open Source Software in use at U of A

Wiki software

In the Future

Email similar to Outlook Thunderbird

Web Broswer Firefox

Uses beyond Photoshop

GIMP

Web Server Apache

Java servlet engine TomCat

Institutional Repository Open Sesame

Open Source Bibliographic Citation Software

A overview of Jabref Citation Manager

George Harmond, Systems LibrarianFlorida State University

Downloading Jabref

Download from http://sourceforge.net/projects/jabref/ Project Home Page: http://jabref.sourceforge.net/ Prerequisite software required: An installed Java

engine Recommended - the Java JRE from

http://java.com/en/about/brand/pcoem/ Many IT departments pre-install Java on computers before

the user gets the computer. Some IT departments will not allow the loading of software

unless approval is given – Please follow your policies !!

Documentation – where to get help for using Jabref

Documentation can be forund at: http://jabref.sourceforge.net/

The same documentation can be found under the Help menu in the Jabref menu bar

What is Jabref?

From the Jabref site: “JabRef is an open source bibliography reference manager. The native file format used by JabRef is BibTeX, the standard LaTeX bibliography format. JabRef runs on the Java VM (version 1.4.2 or greater), and should work equally well on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.”

The Good Things

Jabref runs in the Java Environment – Java is non OS-platform specific (Runs on Windows, Linux Mac OS, etc)

Open Source – Free for download and use. You can download as many copies of the software as you want/need to. There are no per-computer licensing restrictions.

Jabref recognizes formats for several of the major database vendors, including ISI, CSA, INSPEC, Jstor, Medline, Ovid, SciFinder.

Recognizes RIS and Endnote formats.

The Bad News

Jabref runs in the Java Environment – Jabref does not have Z39.50 capability Does not recognize the MARC format.

Creating new Import filters requires a real working knowledge of Java programming.

Does not print References – uses export to print.

Using Jabref

Jabref organizes citations for you Allows the user to choose how citations are

displayed Imports citations from a number of scientific

and social sciences databases Will export in several formats Works (Limited) with OpenOffice.org 2.x

Jabref does NOT

Print citations directly from the Jabref program

Does NOT work directly with Microsoft word (eg. Like Endnote)

However you can export in RTF format ot the clipboard and paste directly into Microsoft or OpenOffice documents. File->Export->HarvardRTF

Does support export to OpenOffice.org spreadsheet as a CSV

Continued….

Put in something about Biblioscape the freeware citation manager

Right click to export to clipboard in HTML, XML, and RTF format. Can use to paste into Word docs.

Do CSA, INSPEC, ISI , JStor, Medline, Ovid, REPEC, RIS, Refer, Endnote, Scifinder, Silverplatter,

What formats are supported? APA ALA ETC?? NO –You have to set things up in your own style.