[Hidden-tech] organizing an online library

[Ian Walls]

Can't believe I missed this until now...  this kind of system is what I do
professionally :)

I'd recommend taking a look at Koha (www.koha-community.org).  It's an open
source Intergrated Library System.  It does not only the cataloging portion
of the job (both adding/editing records, and displaying them to the public,
all the web), but can also keep track of users, "circulation" of materials,
acquisition of new materials, and anything else that a library would do.
It's used by thousands of libraries the world over, and has one of the most
active developer communities in open source (according to some recent Ohloh
stats).

It runs off Zebra instead of Solr, so it's much lighter-weight, but
accomplishes many of the same end results (quick search over a variety of
indexes, Boolean search, fuzzy queries, facets, etc etc etc).  Solr support
is being developed by some of our French friends.  They've also gotten SOPAC
integration, so it can be tied into Drupal.

It's 100% free, but you can obtain professional support from a number of
companies (including mine), if you're so inclined.  Hosting is a
possibility, too.  I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have (as a
Koha community member, not as a paid professional; I do this because I love
it).

Cheers,


-Ian

On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 6:14 PM, Rich Roth <webmaster at hidden-tech.net>wrote:

>   ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
>   ** If you did, we all thank you.
>
>
>
>
> On 8/23/2011 9:57 AM, Terran Birrell wrote:
>
>
> Hi Rich,
>
>  Your Solr search looks interesting. I don't see pricing for the hosted
> version. What's the story with that?
>
> The 1st 1000 documents are free - beyond that we have been playing with
> various price plans,
> we're looking for comments and suggestions - by document count is easiest
> to meter, search traffic is harder,
> we expect to use a sorta logarithmic pricing: $10 for up to 10,000. $20 for
> up to 50,000, $30 for up to 100,000
> or the like -- looking for comments and for now we are making custom price
> deals.
>
>
>  Just to make sure I have this straight: the advantage over just
> organizing using categories and tags is that once you're at the first level
> (say you've searched and found posts in a category) you can drill down
> further into more categories and tags. You're essentially saying show me
> everything with both this category AND this tag, where the default behavior
> is just pick one category and show me that. Is this correct?
>
> Not quite -- solr searches a set of keywords with the full power of text
> search (phrase or word proximity, lemmatization - ignoring word forms,
> singular plural etc), and pre-built indexes for speed PLUS it figures out
> what facets (tags & categories) apply to the selections as you drill down.
>
> If you mean by default behavior, you mean the standard wordpress (or
> jooomla) search - those only allow a simple text search (exact words typed),
> or select a single category or tag.
>
> Also, in solr, all the selections are combined to rate documents by
> relevance to the selction criteria, not a simple
> rank ordering (usually by date) that a database search uses.
>
>  Will it work with custom post types or would this require some sort of
> extra configuration/code?
>
> Do you mean the form method and added variables or what ?  It depends on
> what the nature of the customization is
> how custom the handling needs to be.
>
> One advantage of using in internal solr plugin vs the typical google search
> many people use over the internal sql search, is that the information in
> solr can be all that the database knows vs google only knows what text is on
> each page and as such can not facet.
>
> If you mean something different, I'd need examples.
>
> Rich
>
>
>  Terran
>
> On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 10:28 PM, Rich Roth <webmaster at hidden-tech.net>wrote:
>
>>    ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's
>> area.
>>   ** If you did, we all thank you.
>>
>>
>>  Interesting that Kelly would mention solr in this context, we too use
>> solr for both simple
>> systems like this and
>> much bigger ones -- the key to using facets is that the solr engine does
>> the grouping and
>> when you drill down
>> using specific facets or search terms, it will only show the facets that
>> now apply.
>>
>> For systems of the size you are talking about we use either joomla or
>> Wordpress and
>> actually have an online service that runs the solr for you (since solr is
>> a more complex
>> java based system that can run millions of documents or only a few
>> hundred),
>> and includes plugins for both joomla and wordpress.
>>
>> You can find the system with it's various examples and plugins at:
>>    http://www.solrhq.com
>>
>> You can see a relatively simple example esp showing the faceting at:
>> http://www.profsharon.net
>>        (Disclaimer - that is my wife's blog)
>>
>> It has about 150 posts and uses the most obvious faceting for WP -
>> categories and tags
>> Here is a simple example: http://www.profsharon.net/?s=museums
>> On the left you can see the facets for Categories and Tags that match post
>> that are
>> applicable.
>> This was done using the wordpress plugin and solrhq -- out of the box.
>>
>> For a custom system, you have very wide control over what are facets and
>> how to display them,
>> you can use the existing plugins or tailor them as you need since the
>> interface layer is
>> all in php.
>> You can start using our SolrHQ service and switch to your own install of
>> Solr if needed.
>>
>> Here is an example of a Joomla based biographical database of Shaker
>> community members
>> that we are developing
>> with the Shaker community and various Shaker museums:
>>            http://www.shakerstudies.info/studies/brethren-search
>> It has a more custom 'google like' look.
>>
>> In fact, I expect to have the HT archives indexed in Solr within the next
>> few months,
>> giving us much better control then
>> the google search being used now.
>>
>> Rich
>>
>> On 8/22/2011 9:29 PM, Kelly Albrecht wrote:
>> >    ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's
>> area.
>> >    ** If you did, we all thank you.
>> >
>> >
>> > Sounds like a good case for Solr search. You would enter each resource
>> > into a CMS as content. You could then tag each resource with as many of
>> > the relevant items (subject, grade level, expertise (beginner,
>> > intermediate), etc.) as you see fit. You then connect that CMS to Solr
>> > and each of these tags, and many other aspects of the resource, become
>> > "facets."
>> >
>> > Facets are an awesome way to find what you are looking for. You may have
>> > used facets to find what you were looking for on sites like New Egg, or
>> > Lowes, or B & H Photo. Solr makes this possible.
>> >
>> > Personally I would use Drupal for this and connect it to Solr. Each
>> > resource type would be a Content Type. Things like subject, grade level,
>> > expertise (beginner, intermediate), etc. would be fields on each
>> > relevant Content Type. Solr would take it from there (plus maybe a
>> > little site design to get the user started).
>> >
>> > You can try out Drupal and Solr on Drupal's website drupal.org. Search
>> > for something and the facets show up on the right side. When using Solr,
>> > it is not required to start with a search either.
>> >
>> > I do think this is a little much for Wordpress, but others on the list
>> > may have some good examples of Wordpress being a good fit. There is a
>> > Solr plugin for Wordpress too.
>> >
>> > CHEERS!
>> > kelly
>> >
>> > On 08/22/2011 07:29 PM, Chris Landry wrote:
>> >>     ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's
>> area.
>> >>     ** If you did, we all thank you.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Hey all,
>> >>
>> >> A client of mine wants to redesign a web site that contains a large
>> number of educational resources: books, links, lesson plans, conference
>> materials, book reviews, etc. I'm trying to help them think about how to do
>> this.
>> >>
>> >> Not only are there lots of different kinds of materials, but there
>> could be a number of possible ways to find the most relevant materials:
>> subject, grade level, expertise (beginner, intermediate), etc.
>> >>
>> >> I'd love to see great examples of this kind of thing in WordPress,
>> and/or suggestions about how to begin thinking of good organization of a
>> diverse collection of online materials.
>> >>
>> >> Thanks!
>> >>
>> >> Chris
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Chris Landry
>> >> Landry Communications
>> >> Tell Your Story. Change the World.
>> >> www.christopherlandry.com
>> >> c  413 522-2494 <413%20522-2494>
>> >> o 413 665-1123 <413%20665-1123>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> Hidden-discuss mailing list - home page: http://www.hidden-tech.net
>> >> Hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net
>> >>
>> >> You are receiving this because you are on the Hidden-Tech Discussion
>> list.
>> >> If you would like to change your list preferences, Go to the Members
>> >> page on the Hidden Tech Web site.
>> >> http://www.hidden-tech.net/members
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Hidden-discuss mailing list - home page: http://www.hidden-tech.net
>> > Hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net
>> >
>> > You are receiving this because you are on the Hidden-Tech Discussion
>> list.
>> > If you would like to change your list preferences, Go to the Members
>> > page on the Hidden Tech Web site.
>> > http://www.hidden-tech.net/members
>> >
>> >
>>  > --
>> > Rich Roth
>> > Webmaster/Steering Committee Member
>> > Hidden-tech http://www.hidden-tech.net
>> > The Talent you need is right here,
>> > Join and share your skills
>> > ((Sponsored by Thrives Media))
>>  _______________________________________________
>> Hidden-discuss mailing list - home page: http://www.hidden-tech.net
>> Hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net
>>
>> You are receiving this because you are on the Hidden-Tech Discussion list.
>> If you would like to change your list preferences, Go to the Members
>> page on the Hidden Tech Web site.
>> http://www.hidden-tech.net/members
>>
>
>
>
>  --
> --
> Terran Birrell
> www.Terran.Birrell.us-I build websites you control
> www.WesternMA.biz-Free business listings and weekly event roundups
> (413) 219-6866
> Terran at Birrell.us
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Hidden-discuss mailing list - home page: http://www.hidden-tech.netHidden-discuss@lists.hidden-tech.net
>
> You are receiving this because you are on the Hidden-Tech Discussion list.
> If you would like to change your list preferences, Go to the Members
> page on the Hidden Tech Web site.http://www.hidden-tech.net/members
>
>
> --
> Rich Roth
> Webmaster/Steering Committee Member
> Hidden-tech http://www.hidden-tech.net
> The Talent you need is right here,
> Join and share your skills
> ((Sponsored by Thrives Media))
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Hidden-discuss mailing list - home page: http://www.hidden-tech.net
> Hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net
>
> You are receiving this because you are on the Hidden-Tech Discussion list.
> If you would like to change your list preferences, Go to the Members
> page on the Hidden Tech Web site.
> http://www.hidden-tech.net/members
>



-- 
Ian Walls
Lead Development Specialist
ByWater Solutions
Phone # (888) 900-8944
http://bywatersolutions.com
ian.walls at bywatersolutions.com
Twitter: @sekjal
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.hidden-tech.net/pipermail/hidden-discuss/attachments/20110824/2103daca/attachment.html