ROME: 30th August 2007 -- The story of the East Asia
Oceania (EAO) Region has, of course, been six years in the making, day
by day since the GC25 decision to create the region. And its
progressive story as told by many contributors in the region through
the EAO e-newsletter 'austraLasia' (which drew its name from the
earlier region known as Australia-Asia, then including the Indian
subcontinent), has also been six years in the making, indeed longer,
since the e-letter in question took to the Web in October 1997.
But its presentation through a neat, rapid and effective search
mechanism has been nearly 12 months in the making. The
painstaking task of entering the original texts and attaching
appropriate metadata to them is not yet complete but has reached a
stage where it is possible to present the material for public viewing.
The instrument which has made this possible is the Salesian
Digital Library. The austraLasia collection on sdl.sdb.org
is perhaps one of the best examples of the power and efficiency of this
open source digital library system known in the wider world as the
Greenstone system. This latter, pioneered by the University of
Waikato, New Zealand, and fully supported by UNESCO, has revolutionised
the possibilities of access for poorer nations, because its code is
open, modifiable, and free. Indeed, the Greenstone team has been
fully behind the development of the Salesian Digital Library by way of
direct advice and technical assistance, and in accordance with
Greenstone's principles, this has cost nothing.
SDL,as it is now known, has broad potential for the
Congregation. Not only is the australasia collection now
available, but a good number of documents held in www.sdb.org have been
transferred to the system, for the time being duplicating the document
collection. Two kinds of link to SDL have been included in www.sdb.org:
a general link under the home page 'search' facility is one. Users will
discover that for the documents that have already been transferred to
SDL, finding a document is now much simpler, faster and more accurate,
and can be done in many instances in the language of the user (beyond
the five official languages of sdb.org). The second link is in the
reserved area of sdb.org and takes users to the SDL reserved
area. There is an additional area reserved only for provincials
and provincial secretaries which is accessible on request.
The austraLasia collection will be progressively
added to, in terms of newer items but also through the completion of
metadata for existing items. There is now daily progress in the
addition of documents, images, in fact any kind of 'digital object'
from sdb.org and from additional resources. From the EAO region,
additional languages are requesting entry. A Thai document collection
will soon be available.
SDL is worth a glance either through direct entry or
via www.sdb.org. The direct entry address once more: sdl.sdb.org
(no WWW in front of that, please). _________________ AustraLasia is an
email
service
for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions
as an
agency for ANS based in
Rome.
For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com
.
Use BoscoWiki
to be interactive. RSS feeds - subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/RSS/rssala.xml Avail yourself of the Salesian Digital
Library
at at http://sdl.sdb.org
