MyLibrary

I was recently asked, “I am looking at your Article Index and really like it. I’m not really a perl writer, but I can modify existing perl. What steps do I need to take to make a version of open journal access articles on my site?” Below is my attempt to answer the question.

Article Index demonstrates how MyLibrary can be used as an OAI-PMH service provider against content of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Here’s how to get it to work for you:

1. Install MyLibrary - Describing this in detail is beyond the scope of this document. For more detail, see the online instructions.
2. Download Article Index - A tarball of the entire application is available at http://mylibrary.library.nd.edu/download/article-index-2008-10-14.tar.gz.
3. Create a new MySQL database - Use the file named etc/mylibrary-mysql-schema.sql to initialize an additional database. Again, this is documented as a part of Step #1. If you want to, you can use the file named etc/article-index.sql instead. It contains about 77 MB of sample data.
4. Create a new MyLibrary instance - Use the program called config_mylibrary.pl, found in the MyLibrary distribution, to create a MyLibrary instance. For this implementation we suggest an instance named “articles”.
5. Harvest data - If you did not use etc/article-index.sql to create your database, then run bin/doajarticles2mylibrary.pl. This program will use OAI-PMH to harvest article-level content from the DOAJ and insert the metadata into your MyLibrary instance. Be patient. The process is not zippy.
6. Browse data - Once you get this far you can use a terminal-based interface to see what is in your collection. Get started by running bin/main-menu.pl.
7. Index data - To make the harvested content searchable you need to index it. This is done with the program bin/index.pl. The program will loop through each record in the MyLibrary articles index, extract the metadata, and save the result in etc/index. Again, the process is not zippy. Once finished you should be able to use bin/search.pl to apply rudimentary queries against the index.
8. Put it on the Web - You are almost done. Put this entire distribution in your HTTP file system and make index.cgi executable. You should now be able to connect to your Web server, browse the collection, and search the index. If you want to change the user interface, then edit etc/template.txt because it defines the look & feel of the Web interface.

Tags: Hacks //