OpenCollection is now available in a “QuickStart” download that includes all of the software you need to run a basic install of OpenCollection on Windows 2003, XP and Vista in one easy-to-install package. The QuickStart is the easiest way to try out OpenCollection on your Windows PC without having to muck around with server configurations. Just download it, unzip it onto your “C:” drive and fire it up! 

You can learn more about the QuickStart in the download area.

This bugfix release addresses more than a dozen issues brought to our attention since the release of OpenCollection 0.54 two months ago. The complete list of changes is available in the changelog included in both the fresh install and update download packages. You can download the updater and see a list of changes here.

Please keep the bug reports coming! We can only fix issues if we know about them. Please file bugs on our bug tracker at http://trac.opencollection.org/newticket

For those of you planning to attend the International Conference Dublin Core and Metadata Applications in Berlin on September 22 - 26, 2008, be sure to check out the presentations by OpenCollection project team members Seth Kaufman and Seth van Hooland introducing OpenCollection and exploring issues of metadata quality and assessment. We hope to see you soon in Berlin!

We are pleased to announce the release of version 0.54 of OpenCollection! This is an incremental release with several significant new features as well as many bug fixes and minor improvements. Changes since version 0.53 include:

• Object representations can now be put in arbitrary order
• Code 39, Code 128, EAN-13, PostNet and UPC format barcodes are now supported on labels
• Items in the object “history” tab (type-specific timestamped blocks of text) may now be sorted ascending or descending
• Added support for GoogleMaps new ‘terrain’ map type
• New feature for managing a hierarchy of storage locations and recording current and previous locations of objects
• New feature for recording acquisition of use rights and licensing of use rights for objects
• Basic reporting features are now implemented with options for HTML and tab-delimited output. Any text search can be used as the basis of a report. These reporting features will be greatly expanded and improved in upcoming releases
• The “preview” object tab has been renamed “summary” and is now used to summarize object cataloguing prior to editing
• New user preference added allowing users to specify whether upon clicking on an object in a search result the summary tab or the “basic” editing tab is displayed
• The MagickWand PHP module is no longer required in order for OC to use the ImageMagick image processing back-end. OC will always use MagickWand if it is available; if it is not it will attempt to use the ImageMagick commandline utilities as pointed to in the external_applications.conf file; if that doesn’t work the OC will attempt to us the PHP built-in GD graphics processing library
• Default antialiasing of derivative images generated by OC has been reduced; many users complained the default setting resulted in images that were too “soft” You can still customize this setting by editing the media_processing.conf file
• Changed CSS setup; ‘general.css’ now houses stock styles that may be overridden on a per-site basis in the new ’site.css’ stylesheet
• PDF support no longer requires Ghostscript (still required to generate thumbnails of pages however)
• PDFs now supported on Windows
• Microsoft Word documents can now be uploaded as object representations via the new MSWord media plugin
• Object idno (aka. accession number) field maximum width increased from 30 characters to 255 characters

You can download the updated software at http://www.opencollection.org/index.php?g=download&s=opencollection.This version is the last of the 0.5x series. The next version, 0.6, will feature support for localization and multiple languages, OAI-PMH, data ingestion facilities, improved reporting, and more. The planned release date for version 0.6 is late summer 2008.If you have questions or suggestions about this release, or anything OpenCollection-related contact us at support@opencollection.org. Have a great summer!

During the international conference “Digitales Kulturerbe – Gemeinsam vernetzen“ in Berlin on April 28/29th one panel will focus on OpenCollection. OC developer Seth Kaufman will provide an overview about the software and perspectives. Other contributions of the panel are related to

•  the idea of collaborative authority files (OpenData) and OpenCollection
•  the  service-oriented architectures (like xTree) in relation to OpenCollection 
• the expandability of OpenCollection
• the approach of OpenSource in general for the cultural domain

The conference takes place at the Deutsche Kinemathek. Further information (german language) are available online at http://www.kulturerbe-vernetzen.de

OpenCollection developer Seth Kaufman will present a workshop with project partner Seth van Hooland (Université Libre de Bruxelles) and Hein Vanhee of the Royal Museum for Central Africa at FARO in Brussels on April 25th.  For more information visit http://faronet.be/agenda/workshop-open-source-tools-voor-collectie-ontsluiting

Jürgen Keiper of the Deutsche Kinemathek in Berlin will be presenting a workshop about OpenCollection at the FachGruppe 7 Frühjahrstagung in Berlin on April 22nd:

Die Integration von Archivdaten in Portale und die sinnvolle Vernetzung von Information sind die aktuellen Herausforderungen für Archivverwaltungssoftware. Es ist kein Zufall, dass ausgerechnet OpenSource-Software hier ihre Stärken ausspielt: Transparente Datenmodelle, offene Dateiformate und Datenbanken erleichtern diese Aufgaben. Sie ermöglichen einfache und unkomplizierte Anpassungen der Software. Im Mittelpunkt des Vortrages steht die Präsentation von OpenCollection, einer OpenSource-Anwendung, die im Moment in den USA Furore macht. Anhand von konkreten Beispielen werden verschiedene Konzepte von „offenen“ Sammlungen präsentiert.

 Es gibt mehr auf diesem Seite: http://www.fg7.de/Fruehtag/2008/start.html 

Seth van Hooland, Universitat Libre de Bruxelles, will speak about OpenCollection at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Scholarly Communication Working Group on April 2nd at noon. Van Hooland’s presentation will introduce OpenCollection and provide an overview of members and plans. He will also focus on the stakes of metadata quality within the cultural heritage sector and the impact of technology upon collection description practices. The Scholarly Communications Working Group is co-sponsoring the event with the SILS/Metadata Research Center. You can read more about it at http://www.unc.edu/schol-com/programs.php.

OpenCollectionAccess (OCA) version 0.1 is now available for download. You can also try a demo.

OCA is a simple web-based interface providing search and browse access to collections created and maintained using the OpenCollection collections management package version 0.53. It is meant to provide public access to OpenCollection databases but is also handy if you need to provide any kind of audience with read-only access to all or part of your collections data.  Like OpenCollection, OCA is free and open-source.

This is just the starting point for OCA. Please do let us know what you think of it and suggest improvements on our support forum.

OpenCollection developer Seth Kaufman will give a presentation at the Archivists Round Table monthly meeting on Thursday, February 21st  at the Brooklyn Historical Society, 128 Pierrepont Street in Brooklyn Heights. While the presentation will be primarily about the public programs and operations of the Coney Island History Project, Seth will also discuss ongoing digitization and access programs and the Project’s support for the development of OpenCollection in the areas of collections cataloguing, online access and exhibitions and handling of oral history materials.