SIGN UP FOR UPDATES

DPubS Newsletter -- August 2006

The DPubS Report
produced by CUL for the DPubS community

The DPubS Report is a monthly briefing on the latest developments from the institutions and individuals working on the alpha and beta releases of DPubS v.2. This newsletter will highlight the latest developments on the technology front and profile projects and programs where DPubS v.2 is being used.

The DPubS Report is distributed to our development partners and a growing list of stakeholders in the academic library and scholarly publishing communities.

In This Issue

COMMUNITY NEWS
- DPubS development partner news
- DPubS development partners meeting

SOFTWARE RELEASE SCHEDULE

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT UPDATE
- Enhancements in current release (2006-07-28)
- Near-term scheduled work

PROJECT SPOTLIGHT
- New journal to be published using DPubS software

COMMUNITY NEWS

DPUBS DEVELOPMENT PARTNER NEWS

University of Utah is exploring the digitization and use of DPubS to publish the full run of the "Anthropological Papers," a 125-volume serial publication of the University of Utah Press, published since 1968.

Penn State Libraries will be loading the backfile of Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, from 1907-2000, this fall and the backfile of Western Pennsylvania History journal in 2007. These two journals will complement the Pennsylvania History journal and bring the three major journals exploring the state's history into one collection. The Libraries will also be loading its first conference proceedings for the Women in Engineering Conference from 1990-2001 later this fall.

DPUBS DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS MEETING

A meeting of DPubS development partners took place June 13-14, 2006 in Ithaca, NY. Represented were Cornell University, Penn State University, University of Kansas, University of Utah, and University of Wisconsin-Madison. Topics included an overview of the DPubS development schedule, interoperability with Fedora and DSpace, Open Source licensing, two break-out sessions (one on content management for library administrators, the other on DPubS technical development), partner reports, libraries as scholarly publishers, open source governance, and DPubS promotional activities. Complete minutes and presentations are on the DPubS wiki.

SOFTWARE RELEASE SCHEDULE

DPubS 2.0 beta partner release, early September 2006.

• Supports conference proceedings, monographs, and journals
• Fedora interoperability.
• Admin Services interface, phase I

DPubS 2.0 public release, October 2006.

DPubS 2.1 public release, January 2007.

• Admin Services interface, phase II
• Editorial Services tools, phase I

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT UPDATE

ENHANCEMENTS IN CURRENT RELEASE (2006-07-28)

• Support for conference proceedings has been added. DPubS now comes pre-configured to ingest and display conference proceedings.
• Collection Service redesign completed. This involved numerous internal system changes resulting in a more rational separation of Collection and Repository functionality. From the user and administrator perspective, it is now easier to create collections. Hooks were also added for future tie-in with the Admin User Interface.
• Repository service: redesigned Repository formats definitions. This makes it easier to create and administer DPubS formats (the metadata and file types within the system.) In the process, we added html, xhtml, Word docs, Power Point and a number of other file formats. The conference proceedings metadata formats are now pre-defined in DPubS. Alterations were also carried out to the Repository in preparation for using Fedora.
• Lucene search engine: we've altered the Index Service so that it can be configured to use either the Lucene or freewais search engine. Using Lucene will simplify system setup substantially. Thanks to Su Shaoyu at Utah for a lot of this work!
• User Interface Service: continued work on style sheets, improving the default presentation of journals and/or conference proceedings. We're working toward an optimal division between the role of XSLT and that of CSS in the default styles, which can then be used as models for publication-specific styles. Added a debug mode to the UI, so that style sheet creators can more easily view what XML is available to them.
• Fixed bug in sorting of search results, when search slices occur.
• Removed the last use of XML::Parser, which is no longer needed as part of the system setup.
• DPubS Importer changed to work with the Admin User Interface under development (Admin UI not in this release).

NEAR-TERM SCHEDULED WORK

• Updates to documentation.
• Administrative User Interface Service: we plan to have an initial set of interfaces in the September public release. The next partner release should include these for testing and feedback.
• More Lucene testing and configuration work. Assuming that this will become the search tool of choice among DPubS users, we may try to make more use of its functionality.
• Penn State is working on Fedora interoperability. The plan is to have that capability in the September release, with a working version for testing in late August.

PROJECT SPOTLIGHT

NEW JOURNAL TO BE PUBLISHED USING DPUBS SOFTWARE

Formerly published by Cambridge University Press, the archive and future issues of the journal Medieval Philosophy and Theology will soon be available online thanks to Cornell University Library and the DPubS software. The archive includes all 11 volumes and contains more than 100 articles in all areas of medieval philosophy, including logic and natural science, and in medieval theology, including Christian, Jewish, and Islamic theology. Its coverage extends from the Patristic period through the Neo-Scholasticism of the seventeenth century. In his proposal, editor Scott MacDonald outlined the following benefits of using the DPubS publishing software: open access will increase the journal's accessibility and readership, the search capabilities associated with digitized material will make it easier for scholars and students to find the journal and use its contents, and the digital format will enable the journal to publish its material much more quickly, thereby increasing the journal's value to both readers and contributors.

Medieval Philosophy and Theology appeals to philosophers, theologians, medievalists, and historians of philosophy, theology, and science. The members of the editorial board and the panel of editorial advisors represent eleven countries in Europe and North America in a range of academic, disciplinary, and scholarly traditions and approaches.

Copyright © 2006 Cornell University Library