Overview
- Background information
- Technology overview
- Installation issues
- Modules overview
- Management and planning
Background information
- ABCD = Automatisación de Bibliotécas y Centros de Documentación
- ABCD = WinISIS + KOHA
- ISIS database creation and structures definition
- ISIS PFT’s creation with testing
- ISO-2709 import/export, import from text files and CSV with conversion tables
- All main library management functions :
- cataloguing, OPAC, loans, statistics, serials management, portal, acquisitions
- ABCD is a BIREME initiative supported by VLIR/UDC
- BIREME avails not only their best existing web-based ISIS applications (SeCS, EMP, iAH) but also their experts coordinated by E. Spinak and hired G. Ascencio (Venezuela) to contribute from her Orbital Documental products
- All BIREME ISIS-technology culminates into ABCD !
- VLIR/UDC (Flemish University Development Co-operation) selected ABCD as preferred ILS and contributes funding and will provide French version plus training materials + pilot workshop through DOCBIBLAS project (E. de Smet)
- BIREME avails not only their best existing web-based ISIS applications (SeCS, EMP, iAH) but also their experts coordinated by E. Spinak and hired G. Ascencio (Venezuela) to contribute from her Orbital Documental products
- ABCD aims at :
- Providing ISIS-users community with an integrated library system which is suitable also for university libraries as per requirements of VLIR/UDC
- e.g. MARC, AGRIS, METS, Z39.50, thesaurus-support
- High volumes (at least up to 500K full records)
- (close to) state-of-the-art functionality
- Which can be(come) an alternative to KOHA c.s. for ISIS-users building on the existing ISIS reality
- Providing ISIS-users community with an integrated library system which is suitable also for university libraries as per requirements of VLIR/UDC
- Planning of the development :
- September 2008 : first beta version distributed for testing at Rio ISIS3 conference, including :
- Database management
- Cataloguing in MARC + CEPAL structures
- OPAC + Serials Management + Portal
- End 2008 : full version 1.0
- Circulation + Statistics
- March 2009 : Training materials in English,
- Spanish and French
- Planning of 1st phase users :
- September 2008 : first beta version distributed for testing at Rio ISIS3 conference, including :
- University libraries in Latin-America, e.g.
- UMSS (Cochabamba, Bolivia)
- UCLV and public libraries network (Cuba)
- University libraries in Africa. e.g.
- Moi University (Eldoret, Kenya)
- Mekelle and Jimma University (Ethiopia)
- Sokoine University (Tanzania)
- Some 4 – 5 other VLIR/UDC partner universities are queuing (Suriname,
- Peru, Ecuador, Mozambique)
- … many others for sure !
- => not just a newcomer on the scene…
ABCD Technology
- WEB-based :
- The software runs as web-pages in a web-browser (IE, FF, Opera, Chrome, Safari…) served by a web-server (Apache, Xitami, IIS)
- Client-server can run on ‘localhost’ (127.0.0.1) on any PC with Windows or UNIX/Linux
- Pages are written in PHP (v5.2)
- E.g. HTML Editor controls can be used
- PFT’s can contain all HTML codes as literals
- Links are web-links ()and multimedia is provided by HTML
- ABCD is ISIS-based :
- All data are stored in ISIS-databases
- Until 2009 : ‘classic ISIS-technology’ upgraded with CISIS extensions, i.e. MST+XRF with 1Mb records upto 4 Gb databases, IF with 60-character keys
- From 2009 : ‘seemless’ migration to NBP
- ISIS-Script is used for data retrieval
- (C)ISIS Formatting Language is used throughout
- Existing ISIS-databases and their structures can be imported
- All data are stored in ISIS-databases
- ABCD uses PHP :
- Current version 5.2
- Free OS software with large developers community and very wide usage
- Easy installation, often together with Apache, e.g. WAMP, XAMP, EasyPHP…
- Already offers a wealth of ‘controls’ (existing codes for almost any popular function), e.g. calendar, HTML Editor etc.
- Strong links with e.g. (MySQL and) Postgres e.g. to be used in future Loans module
- ABCD uses JavaScript
- as part of its HTML-capabilities
- Client-server with 2 options :
- CGI (Common Gateway Interface) : if $url variable is defined in config.php, this ‘classic’ protocol will be used to call the wxis-server to serve ISIS-pages
- Advantages : widely used, more secure
- Direct executable calling : if no $url variable is defined in config.php, PHP will directly ‘exec’ the wxis-server as a call to the OS
- Advantages : (a bit) faster
- Disadvantage : less secure, e.g. Windows ‘cmd’ needs ‘executable rights’ on WWW-sharing
- CGI (Common Gateway Interface) : if $url variable is defined in config.php, this ‘classic’ protocol will be used to call the wxis-server to serve ISIS-pages
ABCD Installation
Web-server : Apache
- PHP
- Both are free OS softwares, most resp. very widely used web-server resp. scripting engine
- Both can be installed independently or as part of packages such as WAMP, XAMP, EasyPHP
- Apache needs PHP-modules to be included (in httpd.conf) LoadModule php5_module “c:/wamp/bin/php/php5.2.5/php5apache2_2.dll”
- Apache needs ‘Alias‘ declared in httpd.conf for :
- ‘abcd’ for the folder \abcd\www\htdocs
- ‘bases’ for the folder \abcd\www\bases
- ScriptAlias for the folder \abcd\www\cgi-bin
- If not working : open in your browser \abcd\www\htdocs\php\test\test.php
- Test on PHP installation
- Test on WXIS being available, executable and having access to users-DB
- ABCD-users can/should be created first (by administration super-user : login ‘abcd’, password ‘adm’) :
- Create user
- Link to pre-listed DBs as 1 of 4 possible levels
- 4 user levels for added security :
- System Administrator : ‘access to all areas’ (superuser, be careful !!)
- Database Administrator : can change, modify read and write the given database
- Database Operator : can read and write the given database
- Loans Operator : can read and write only the Loans database
ABCD Modules
- Database management
- Creation and modification of database structures Internal and external database ID
- Can be copied from existing WinISIS-databases or from existing ABCD-databases
- Can be created ‘from scratch’ with FDT, FST, FMT and PFT-editors
- Updating of created database structures
- FDT, FST, FMT, PFT + record validation
- Advanced search form (for cataloging) definition
- Help files
- Database management : Utils
- Initialise DB
- Delete DB
- Lock/unlock DB
- Help pages and translation editing
- Browsing database folder
- OPAC configuration for DB
- Cataloguing with main handy (!) toolbar :
- Browsing MFN’s
- Searching by form, A-Z browser
- New or copied record, Z39.50 downloading
- Edit, stop edit, save or delete record
- Print, tools (import/export, GMOD, locks, IF)
- Help pages, Home
- Serials Management with SeCS module
- OPAC searching with iAH
- The ABCD interactive portal : allows ‘localisation’, news/messages
- future development : links with NBP/Plone CMS-environment
- Loans administration
- Statistics and reports
- Acquisitions management
ABCD : Management
- Timing :
- Test version (beta) to be tested SeptemberDecember 2008
- Loans, Statistics + Acquisition modules to be developed by December 2008
- loans/statistics : 75% ready now (September)
- Acquisitions : simple ‘pre-cataloguing’ module will be produced by end of 2008
- Training materials (in En, Sp, Fr) to be produced by March 2009
- Other additional developments :
- Loans module using Postgres with dynamic coupling over LDAP to existing user-registration systems
- UMSS (Cochabamba, Bolivia) is interested to do this French version to be produced (by DOCBIBLAS project from VLIR/UDC)
- Arabic version ? => is being planned
- …
- ???
- Loans module using Postgres with dynamic coupling over LDAP to existing user-registration systems
- Separate from ISIS co-ordination or not ?
- Communication through ISIS-list or dedicated OS-tools ?
- Co-ordination through BIREME
- Who ?
- How ?
- Migration to NBP in 2009 : how, guidance ?