Digitize Your Collections with Greenstone Digital Library Software:

An Open Source

Kanwaljit Kaur Dhindsa

Librarian, Central Library, Guru Nanak Dev Engg. College, Ludhiana-141006

E-mail:kanwaldhindsa@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

As the digitization is very costly process from ever but the another way which will provide the dare to

digitize the library collections is open source softwares, which will definitely save lots of money,

proposed to be spent on the designing of web site and retrieval system to make a digital library. So

many open sources are available for such jobs including D-space and Greenstone. This paper

emphasis's the practical implementation of an open source i.e. Greenstone Digital Library Software

instead of the theoretical aspects. How to make use of this open source in the libraries is the key idea of

this article. A practical view to digitize the library collections with little efforts like thesis (full text and

abstracts) or for question papers or other important documents/letters of the office etc. have been

provided.

Keywords:Digital Library,Open Source Software, Greenstone Digital Library Software,How to start

digitization,Installation of Greenstone, Open Sources in India

INTRODUCTION:

The purpose of this article is to create a digital collection including the installation of digital library

software i. e. Greenstone with web Library setup .There are two basic methods to publish a digital

collection:

TRADITIONAL METHOD

SMART METHOD

Traditional Method: Direct from Paper to Digital Collection which includes Selection and

Preparation of the Print Documents, Scanning Print Documents in E-Formats, OCR (optical character

recognition) Processing, Editing and Proof reading ,Uploading scanned files, creating Links and

Indexes and designing Retrieval Systems and building a Complete Digital Collection including the

Meta data creation .

In this method, Off course, a web page and retrieval system designing is required, which is the most

important and costly process of digitization.

But as the monetary policy is concerned there is not an enough money with the most of the libraries, as

a result these libraries never dare to think regarding such processes.

But, There is an another Method that let them think about digitization i. e.

Smart Method of digitization through already prepared and ever growing, well structured, strategic

softwares like Greenstone & Dspace etc.

WHY SMART METHOD ?

Because this method provides ready made indexes, classifiers, links and standardized meta data sets

with the already designed web page and retrieval system, which is accessible from any web browser

like Internet Explorer or Mozilla etc.

Greenstone Digital Library Software:An open Source:

Greenstone is an open source software for building and distributing digital library collection which

creates links, classifiers and indexes automatically for digital collections. It is not a digital library but

a tool for building a digital library. It provides a new way of organizing information and publishing it

on the Internet in the form of a fully search able, meta data driven digital library. It is an open

source, multilingual software, issued under the terms of the GNU, general public license.

DEVELOPMENT:

It has been developed and distributed in cooperation with UNESCO and the Human info.

NGO in Belgium. Its developers received the 2004 IFIP Namur award for “Contributions to the

awareness of social implications of information technology and the need for an holistic approach in

the use of information technology that takes account of social implications”

OPERATING ENVIRONMENTS:

Greenstone runs on all versions of windows95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP etc. and Unix/Linux Distribution

(Latest) and Mac OS-X environments. It is quite easy to install. No configuration is required for the

default windows installation and end users routinely install Greenstone on their personal computers.

Institutional users run it on their main web server, where it inter operates with standard web server

software e. g. Apache or IIS.

INTEROPERABILITY:

Greenstone is highly inter-operable using contemporary standards, it incorporates a server that can

serve any collection over the Open Archives Protocol for Meta-data Harvesting(OAI-PMH), and

Greenstone can harvest documents over OAI-PMH and include them in a collection. Any Collection

can be exported to Dspace (another digital library software) and any Dspace collection can be

imported into Greenstone.

INTERFACES:

Greenstone has two separate interactive interfaces:

Librarian Interface:

It is a graphical user interface that makes it easy to gather material for a collection even downloading

from the web or downloading from the existing Greenstone collection, enrich it by adding meta data,

design the searching Indexes and browsing classifiers facilities that the collection will offer the end

user, build and serve the collection.

User Interface:

End users access the digital library through a web browser, it may be Mozilla, Internet Explorer etc .

META-DATA FORMATS

A Librarian can define meta-data interactively within the Librarian interface. In Greenstone the

following predefined meta-data sets are available :

Dublin Core

RFC 1807

NZGLS (New Zealand Govt. Locator Service)

AGLS(Australian Govt. Locator Service)

Dublin Core is the recommended meta-data format.

DOCUMENT FORMATS

Plug-ins are also used to process documents. Plug-ins are available for the following

formats:

For Textual documents: PDF, Post Script, Word, RTF, HTML, Plain text, Latex,

ZIP archives, Excel, PPT, Email, source code

Multimedia Documents:

Images: GIF, JIF, JPEG, TIFF

Audio: MP3,MPEG,MIDI etc.

MULTILINGUAL

One of it's unique strength is Multilingual Nature. Reader's Interface is available in various languages

including Arabic, Bengali, Hindi and Kannada. As the Librarian Interface is in English, Spanish,

French and Russian.

DISTRIBUTION:

Source-forge is a leading distribution center for such open source softwares. The older distributions are

available from the source forge's website i.e.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/greenstone/

and it is also available from it's own web site i.e.

http://www.greenstone.org/download

or the latest version of Greenstone 3 is available from the following URL:

http://

www.greenstone.org/

greenstone3-home

LATEST VERSION:

Available latest version for this software is V3.03, but here the installation process for

the version V2.80 will be demonstrated on Windows XP environment with IIS (Internet

Information Services ) web server.

PREREQUISITES

Image Magick :

http://sourceforge.net/projects/imag

emagick

Java Run time environment

Web Server Installation (e. g. Apache or IIS) is required only if performing web based client

server mode installation .

TYPES OF INSTALLATIONS SETUP :

Three types of installations setup are their:

Local library (Standalone) for using single computer.

web Library (requires separate web server) for client server mode to run the software on more

than one computers.

Source code for programmers

INSTALLATION PROCESS:

After installing the ImageMagick and Java Run time environment one should choose the web server

that may be Apache or IIS. Here, the dependency is on IIS (Internet Information Services) web server.

How to Check the availability of IIS:

Please check if the “wwwroot” folder is available at the following location:

C:\Inetpub\wwwroot or check from

Control Panel->Administrative Tools->IIS-> expand the local computer/server

->expand the websites->expand the default web sites->check the IIS Help or

With the simplest and accurate method i. e. type the following URL in the browser:

http://localhost/IISHelp/iis/misc/default.asp and see the following screen.

if the above IIS contents are open, it means, your web server is working fine, Otherwise follow the

following steps to install the IIS:

Open the Control Panel->Add/Remove Program->Add/Remove windows components-> select the

IIS(Internet Information Services)->insert the operating system CD (Windows XP)->Click Next -

>Click Finish.

or install the IIS directly from the Windows XP Cd.

Installation of Greenstone software,version 2.80

Download the Software “gsdl-2.80-win32” from: http://www.greenstone.org/download.

Double click the downloaded file from the Internet->select the Language for example “English” as

shown below->Click OK->

Initializing the installation wizard

Then press next to continue the installation process->

Accept the Terms & Conditions->Click Next->

Browse the directory from your computer where you want to install the S/W->

Click web library->click next

Provide the password for admin user->like here the password “admin” entered for admin user

Click install:

Installation in process:

Follow the further instructions & click on next whenever required:

->Click Finish when installation completed

Check the destination folder i. e. D:/Program files/Greenstone where the software is actually installed.

Then make the Software web enable by performing the following steps:

Go to D:\Program Files->Greenstone Folder->write click on the folder & select the properties-

>Click on Properties

Now click the option “share this folder” & fill the alias=gsdl, Access permission=read only &

application permissions=executes (includes scripts)->click ok

It will look like below image:

Then, again go to control panel->administrative tools->

IIS->expand the local computer/server -> expand the websites->expand the default websites-

>select “gsdl”->open it's properties->set execute permissions=Scripts & executables->Press the

create button-> then set Application permissions=Medium(pooled)->

Then click on the tab “Directory Security”->edit the anonymous access and authentication control-

> click anonymous access and allow IIS to control password and also click the integrated windows

authentication-> Apply->Ok

Now Check the installed program from the Start Menu, you will find Greenstone software with it's

Librarian Interface which is required by the librarians to create digital collections.

Creating A Collection:Click on the Librarian Interface and it will initiate the creation process

Initiating Librarian Interface

If the Librarian Interface show any warning message, simply close it and wait for the Librarian

interface window:

Inside Librarian Interface:

Click on File and Click on New to create a new digital collection:

Write the collection Name and description like “Abstracts” and then click OK. It will create a new

collection with the given name:with the given name:

Creating a new collection named “abstracts”

Gather tab Gather tab -> Browse your system/CD/any other drive and select the files you want to download-> Browse your system/CD/any other drive and select the files you want to download

(To select more than one files, select th 1(To select more than one files, select th 1stst file with mouse then hold down file with mouse then hold down the “shift key” and finely

click on the last file.)-> drag those files within collection as shown below.)-> drag those files within collection as shown below.

If it suggest to add any Plugin-> simply click add Plugin or OKIf it suggest to add any Plugin-> simply click add Plugin or OK

Enrich tabEnrich tab->to read the bibliographic or any other information, you can also open the downloaded->to read the bibliographic or any other information, you can also open the downloaded

files in external programs, to do this simply right click on the file and click on “open in externalfiles in external programs, to do this simply right click on the file and click on “open in external

program”program”

Assign meta data with Dublin core standards i. e. dc.* etc. like dc.title. Existing values of the alreadyAssign meta data with Dublin core standards i. e. dc.* etc. like dc.title. Existing values of the already

filled meta data are also shown, you can also select any value from them, if it is same for more than onefilled meta data are also shown, you can also select any value from them, if it is same for more than one

files like date of creation it may be same for 10 or 20 files.files like date of creation it may be same for 10 or 20 files.

Now save the assigned meta data , clicking on “save” option from File Menu ile Menu

Design tabDesign tab->->search Indexessearch Indexes->delete existing indexes like ->delete existing indexes like ex.title and ex.sourceex.title and ex.source etc. which follows etc. which follows

the standards other than Dublin Core.the standards other than Dublin Core.

Now Create New Indexes, just click on “New Index” & add the required indexes one by one startingNow Create New Indexes, just click on “New Index” & add the required indexes one by one starting

from dc.* if following Dublin core Meta data standards. The dc.* represents the Dublin Core Metafrom dc.* if following Dublin core Meta data standards. The dc.* represents the Dublin Core Meta

data standards.data standards.

Browsing classifiers-Browsing classifiers->repeat the process likewise index's->delete the existing classifiers->click “Add >repeat the process likewise index's->delete the existing classifiers->click “Add

classifiers” to define New Classifiers.classifiers” to define New Classifiers.

Add the required classifiers one by one starting from dc.* if you are following Dublin core Meta data Add the required classifiers one by one starting from dc.* if you are following Dublin core Meta data

standards.standards.

In this “Abstract” Collection, the defined classifiers are as under->

Format tabFormat tab->fill the creator's and maintainer's e-mail id. Also browse the image or put the URL of->fill the creator's and maintainer's e-mail id. Also browse the image or put the URL of

image for home page or about page icon for your collection as mentioned below.image for home page or about page icon for your collection as mentioned below.

Create TabCreate Tab->Click the button “->Click the button “Build collection” ->Build collection” -> wait and watch progress

Wait for the following message i.e. “collection has been built & ready for previewing”.Then check the Wait for the following message i.e. “collection has been built & ready for previewing”.Then check the

statistics for processing like it will show you that how many documents were considered for processingstatistics for processing like it will show you that how many documents were considered for processing

and how many was processed and pending-> Then Press “OK”and how many was processed and pending-> Then Press “OK”

Now the collection is ready for user's access, one can see it at the following URLNow the collection is ready for user's access, one can see it at the following URL

Server: http://localhost/gsdl/cgi-bin/library.exe

The newly created collection “Abstracts” is shown as a image because earlier in “Format” tab,

we put the URL for this image. Now just click on this image to open the collection.

you can also check it from another computer(client) on the LAN writing the IP address instead of local

host.

Client: http://192.168.8.233/gsdl/cgi-

bin/library.exe

you can also use the server name instead of IP address of your server.

Searching the Collection: you can search your collection using keywords like search here for

“back safety”, it will show the related documents, one can open the full text document by clicking

on the icon:

Defined browser classifiers like Titles, Subjects (Keywords), Creators (Authors), Dates (Document

creation dates) and Publishers will show the list of documents as per respective classifier like “Titles”

classifier will provide title wise list of documents as shown in below images.

Collection shown as Publishers wise :

Collection shown as Creators (Authors) wise :

Collection shown as Subjects wise :

One can search the full text documents by clicking on the icons. Help for the users is also available on

the same page. Simply click on the “help” icon, it will show the help menu to you, as shown in below

image.

Please read the following page for Information Accessing instructions:

Conclusion:

The mission of the Libraries and Librarians is always to empower their users with the accurate

information quickly. In this Information era , so many solutions are their to do it quickly, accurately

and efficiently but most of the libraries are not able to generate a large amount of funds required to

digitize their collections specially in the developed countries like India.

So, the only hope is open source softwares. U.N. agencies are also promoting these project like

UNESCO sponsors the Greenstone's distribution as part of its “Information for All ” slogan. Food and

Agriculture Organization, ROM sets an example of digital library software i.e. Greenstone in the

digitization and digital Libraries self instructional module using. Greenstone is also used by the

Institute for information Technology in Education, MOSCOW for the Practical work. Greenstone is

also used by some organizations to produce their collections for distribution like UNU, Japan and

Human Info NGO, Belgium.

So, Libraries can digitize and distribute their Photographic, Q-Papers, Article, Thesis, Abstracts and

Newspaper clipping collections with such type of structured softwares with a good knowledge of

computers. Administrative Offices can also digitize their policy documents through this software. At

Home we can also use it to digitize our memorable albums of weddings, birthdays and tours etc.

References:

(2007, December 11). download gsdl-2.80-win32.exe software. Retrieved June 5, 2008, from :

http://www.greenstone.org/download

(n.d.). Snapshots of greenstone digital library software. Retrieved September 11, 2008, from :

Installation process of greenstone performed on September 11,2008.

. In P. v. Rao (Ed.), Manual of training program on “Building Digital Libraries” held at

MGSIPAP Chandigarh from 26.02.08 to 28.02.08 (pp.). Chandigarh, Punjab: MGSIPAP .

(Reprinted from http://www.greenstone.org, , )

(n.d.). ImageMagick.Retrieved June 5, 2008, from :

http://sourceforge.net/projects/imagemagick