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code4libTO December Meetup Talks

BagIt Profiles – @ruebot

  • directory of data
  • bag has what you’re bagging, data, contact email/name, organization information, profile identifier (JSON via a URI)
  • pull in all the field values
  • validate
  • wrote a spec and send it to digital curation community
  • can look up profiles in the registry

Okay, I got a little lost, but you can see more on github.

Internet Archive Torrent Collections (iaTorrent) – @ruebot

  • see demo

Bookfinder – @TheRealArty & Steven

  • I will write this up later probably as a separate blog post, or maybe journal article

TPL’s Web Services Architecture: Understanding the Big Picture – @waharnum

  • many different systems that don’t easily communicate, which needs specialized knowledge even to do basic tasks
  • address the challenges by translation, simplication, standardization
  • Three tiers: Front End Systems (requests to back end) / TPL Web Services (REST) / Back End Systems (responds to front end)
  • Example: TPL Website -> Account Web Services -> Symphony Web Services (Symphony) – and back
  • can add new features and functions
  • helps to solve the challenges mentioned
  • also helps with reusability e.g. in addition to website, build mobile-friendly website, iPhone App
  • Might end up with:
    • Front End (Website, mobile, App)
    • Middle Tier (Account Web Services, ebook Web Services, online payment web services)
    • Back End (symphony, overdrive, payment gateway, accounting systems)
  • other benefits:
    • increase ease of knowledge transfer about how our systems work
    • follow modern best practice approach to building interoperating systems
    • reduce cost and integration time
  • reduce learning time for new staff or consultants
  • metrics: wish had resources
  • bolting together a lot of things, not using a lot of custom code

Ladder (aka MyTPL 2) – @mjsuhonos

  • wanted to solve problem: discovery layers suck
  • problems:
    • not scalable
    • inflexible
    • read-only
    • expensive
  • goals:
    • better than open source options (VuFind, Blacklight)
    • cheaper (than proprietary)
  • scalable as WorldCat
  • design:
    • schema-free/multi-schema (e.g. Dublin Core)
    • horizontally scalable (multi-node)
    • modern OSS components
  • simple data model (RDF)
  • Features:
    • hierarchical relations
    • clustering/de-duplication
    • versioning
    • real-time import & indexing
    • multi-thread/process
    • responsive UI
    • fully multilingual (18/10)
    • dynamic faceting
    • dynamic mapping modification
    • digital content storage (coming soon)
  • built on a linked data
  • not a discovery layer; it’s an integration platform

Heritage U of T – @ajmcalorum

  • News Announcement and Promotional Video
  • previously not centralized: hard drives, flickr, etc.
  • need central repository for tri-campus initiative with search & discovery, preservation, long-term access to content and metadata, support for multiple formats (e.g. images, books, documents, video, exhibits)
  • Drupal + Solr (search) + Fedora Commons (collection management, batch ingesting, metadata crosswalk, digital preservation) == islandora (digital asset management system)
  • pilot: 8 parent collections (by format, by campus)
  • exhibits in Drupal, not through islandora/fedora commons
  • modules: internet archive book reader (OCR on the fly), galleria, colorbox
  • official launch: 2 weeks ago

That’s it! Food and drinks time!

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Author Cynthia NgPosted on December 13, 2012October 1, 2026Categories Events, TechnologyTags code4lib, digital collections, discovery layer, metadata, wayfinding

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Technologist, Support Engineer, Librarian, Metadata and Technical Services expert, Educator, Mentor, Web Developer, UXer, Accessibility Advocate, Documentarian

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