austraLasia #1731
Working on a new service - a digital library
for EAO
ROME: 9th January (St. Julian!) 2007 -- In a widely spread and culturally diverse region
such as East Asia-Oceania, one of the challenges is to be able to make
available a range of documentation (in its widest sense - text, images, audio,
video...) in such a way that it is readily searchable and widely
available. No easy task, but there are possibilities.
austraLasia is working on one of these, using a FOSS (free,
open source software) digital library developed in New Zealand, called Greenstone.
For the moment, no attempt is being made to alter formatting details, so
'Greenstone' (jade!) it is, of the NZ variety! The present focus is to
attempt to gather materials relating to 'Don Bosco the Writer', in languages
from the Region where these materials already exist. It is merely a
sample with no pretence at being anything but that.
The advantage of a digital library of this kind will be
obvious enough - everything available from one place according to the language
you choose. For the moment this sample is sitting on a single computer to
which a small server has been added, and a link to it will only function while
that computer is open. The process of adapting this collection to the
variety of languages we have in the region is turning out to be an interesting
one. After battling for several hours with Korean Han Gul script, I
finally have a file that works for the Memoirs of the Oratory in that
language, inside the library. If we can succeed with Korean, we can
succeed with Chinese, Japanese and Thai. The Khmer script may be an
interesting test too! Vietnamese is no difficulty. Obviously Tetum and
Bahasa are no problem either.
Not sure if this link will work for you, but why not try it.
http://10.0.2.31:1027/gsdl?uq=45291421 is likely to be effective for the next
few hours and when the computer is reopened tomorrow morning (Rome time), so
try - and let me know if you can access the library.
To use it for all but Korean, click on the image of Don
Bosco at his writing desk. You can then search on text, titles, filenames
and language. If you select filenames, you will get all 80 or so items,
which include text, doc, ppt, jpg. You do not need to have these programs -
with the exception of the images, they have been converted to html and will
open in your browser. Try 'language' as English, then Italian, then Chinese.
The last named will take you to one text which will not work in its 'simple'
variety, but will open correctly in Word. If you then click on the Korean
collection (no image, just title) you will find one document which at least on
my machine reads in Korean script - if yours doesn't it only means your operating
system is not set up to read that script.
I would be interested to know (1) if it works (2) if you
consider it might be useful and (3) how you might like to see it deployed.
___________________
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.xm A separate service entirely is called F/OSSERVATORE
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