austraLasia #1788

Announcing a modest, experimental breakthrough with possibilities

ROME: 15th March 2007 -- The day on which Salesians around the world remember Blessed Artemides Zatti, Salesian Brother who lived, worked and died in Patagonia, Argentina, close relative of Fr Vecchi of happy memory - this seems as good a day as any to launch a modest, experimental breakthrough in communications for the Salesian world.  Readers of austraLasia are asked to take a look, when they have a moment, and see what is on offer, but also to send in constructive comments which might help us improve the offer.
    Enough of the suspense - we are trialling a Salesian Digital Library.  If it seems to serve the purpose for which it has been created, and if we can overcome some of the minor technical issues (stemming from lack of knowledge and experience, really, and a smallish server), then it has the possibility of going wider and serving the Congregation as a whole.  The SDL is available at http://sdl.sdb.org .
    Perhaps a brief explanation of the what and the how could be helpful.  This digital library has been constructed using open source software, and is served on a LAMP server which, at the moment, is merely a spare PC hanging around the office with nothing else to do but be used for this purpose.  For this reason, I cannot guarantee that it will manage too many hits at the same time - but that is a difficulty that can be overcome by getting a larger server; after all, since we are using entirely open source, the effort has cost exactly nothing so far.  If you do not seem to be able to get in, then the likely reason would be overload!  There should be no other reason.
    Currently, if you only manage English, you would be best served by the 'Salesianity -English collection'.  If you would prefer to navigate in almost all of the local languages (sorry, no Tagalog as yet, or Tetum), then select a collection first, and on arrival in that collection go to 'preferences' and choose your language.  I cannot guarantee that everything is translated, or properly translated, but a good part of your navigation process will be possible in that language.  Obviously documents will be in the languages they were in originally.  But feel free to browse all collections since they are put there at the moment to demonstrate the versatility of the instrument.
    Since it is Blessed Zatti we are celebrating, why not run a simple search on Zatti. If you want a more complicated search, the 'phrase' search will offer you search phrases, then in preferences you could select a more complex boolean search and actually turn up the precise phrase.  Searching is rapid and accurate at all times.
    Could documents be in Japanese, Chinese, Korean....? Of course!  Just as you can navigate in those languages, so documents could be in those languages - all we need is to have them, and your computer to be able to read them - our software and server can handle 'em!
    There's more we could say - but go ahead and try, and, as I say, if you run into any problems, let's know.  If the tiny little server survives the next 24 hours, it gets a medal!
    GLOSSARY
LAMP: Linux, Apache, MySequel, PHP, four basic open source software items that make all this possible
   _________________
 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   To contact austraLasia by voice on Skype, the Skype name is austraLasia.