Posts Tagged ‘iPad’

A new theme for a newspaper collection in DSpace

A few days ago, we submitted the final report for the LSTA MiniGrant project we worked on this past summer.  We had five core activities: 1) Conversion to PDF and OCR of digital master page images; 2) Migration of metadata and new PDF content to DSpace; 3) Harvesting and indexing of metadata using MultiFacet; 4) Building a new public interface for the collection; and 5) Develop best practices and step by step instructions documentation.

I was responsible for # 4, DSpace provides two options for presenting data on the web: either using JSPUI or XMLUI.  Because of the need to create and customize the look-and-feel for individual collections in DSpace, we decided to use XMLUI –a new front end for DSpace developed at Texas A&M University.  Our previous experience in creating and implementing themes in DSpace was useful.  However, this project allowed us to test and implement three major customizations:

  • embedding external files, for the new OpenZoom image-viewer, we had to create a separate copy of the JP2 files, an XSL template takes the filename of the primary bitstream in DSpace and calls an external PHP file which displays all the pages for the current issue.  We believe this method can be useful for OhioLINK, especially as institutions need to embed other types of files such as videos.
  • displaying local metadata labels, digital collections often have a specific metadata fields, for instance the “Volumen No.” is only relevant for newspaper collections; having the ability to customize the front-end label will be a big advantage for OhioLINK institutions creating unique and special collections in DSpace.
  • calendar view for browsing, we wrote a PHP script that generates a twelve months calendar view for browsing large collections based on date.  This feature can be especially suitable for projects such as yearbooks, magazines or newspapers.  The source data contains two metadata fields: a date in ISO format and an identifier for individual records.

Additionally, I helped with the implementation of a custom viewer within DSpace.  We implemented a dynamic image-viewer using open source software tools to provide an enhanced pan and zoom interface.  The OpenZoom viewer we used requires the use of Flash, which is not fully supported on mobile devices (e.g. Apple iPad); so instead we implemented a purely server side viewer that delivers standard JPG page images quickly to mobile devices. This technique seems to work perfectly fine for multi-page files such as a newspaper issue, the original final is saved as a DjVu and with the magic of PHP script (written by John Millard) we were able to convert the DjVu files into jpg “on the fly.”  This was the foundation for the Miami Student Newspaper collection for iPads.

The front page of the issue published on September 29, 1910 looks like this:
mustudent-1910-09-29

…and this month we’ll have a poster session about this project at the 2010 ALAO Conference in Columbus, OH.

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Digital Collections Going Mobile: An iPad Test!

It’s been almost a week already since I first got an iPad :) …why now? well, with the all the attention that “mobile” services are getting in the media, our Digital Initiatives team proposed/decided to start “prototyping” a mobile version -of the The Miami Student Newspaper Archive in DSpace- for the iPads.  This “apple” device seems to a very good candidate for digital collections; its display (1024×768) makes it an ideal choice for displaying medium-large images such as newspaper pages, maps, manuscripts, etc.

Today’s test looked like this:
mustudent prototype for iPads

The actual work/test will involve a couple processes: a) decide which format to use, current choices are PDF or DjVu; b) export/create an XML file from DSpace with at least four fields: title, publication date, handle, and a URL for the actual file to display; c) modify a calendar page -for browsing- with the appropriate CSS and JavaScript files for the iPad; and hopefully that’s it!

For the regular website of this LSTA-funded project, we’re using an open source tool (OpenZoom) which does an excellent job in displaying large newspaper images with zooming and full-screen options –very cool! …but it’s based on flash, so that’s why we have to use a different format for the iPad test.  And speaking of flash issues on the web, this afternoon I came across this presentation “HTML5’s Multimedia Future” which was part of the OSCON 2010 – O’Reilly Conference in Portland, Oregon.  It seems like HTML5 will make a big difference on the use of multimedia on the web.

On a separate -but related note- I think the iPad is just what I needed to stop printing articles; as happy as I was with the double-sided option on my printer, this new device seems to be a better choice, especially if I try to go green :) …we’ll see how it goes!

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