[Isis-users] ABCD for digital libraries

[De Smet Egbert]

dear all,

we can't deny that there is some (unwanted) silence at the front of ABCD-developments, one reason being that BIREME is re-positioning themselves with regards to the software, meaning they will not take the lead anymore as much as they used to do without fully withdrawing from the scene, other reasons also being there but more personal.
Still there is some development ongoing. I would like to mention 2 tracks of development :
- a stable version 1.2 in which as much bugs as possible, detected from previous versions, would be eliminated hopefully without introducing new ones;
- a new website for ABCD distribution and support, which probably will become a 'distributed' setup with websites in L-A and Europe;
- a special version for Digital Libraries.

This special version for Digital Libraries could eventually evolve into a version ABCD 2.0, in the sense that is will add some real new functionality :
- a feature to allow the librarian to select documents (of any type : PDF, Word, RTF, PPT...) 
- and have their text-contents extracted automatically and inserted into the database, 
- with automatic creation of the URL-link to the original document and 
- full-text searching capability.
A problem we are still working on is the fact that we use a special extended version of the CISIS underlying technology (called 'FFI') which can cope with 1Mb records (which will accommodate for almost all text-contents of documents as we tested this) and faster indexing. This technology is, unfortunately, not compatible with the existing standard one and therefore requires some mechanism for ABCD to detect which database-format (standard or extended) is being used, as we think it would be better to have mixed applications (standard and extended) active in one ABCD-system. We need some input from BIREME for this.
The remaining problem mainly is to also make iAH (the ABCD OPAC) finding a way to detect which version is to be used, again requiring input from BIREME.
First results of the Digital Library feature in ABCD Central are promising and will be tested for further refinement.

So : there is still some life even if we are currently in a lower-speed-development phase, while on the other hand many libraries are actually adopting the software and gaining experience with it. Also some more - often 'national scope' - workshops are being planned, e.g. in Mozambique end of this month. We would also love to hear from their experiences and activities !


Egbert de Smet
Universiteit Antwerpen