Installing the MICHAEL Platform, VSMM conference October 2008

MICHAEL Plus workshop, 2007

MICHAEL technical infrastructure

Kate Fernie

kfernie@tiscali.co.uk

MICHAEL Plus workshop, 2007

Introduction

The MICHAEL platform consists of a set of software tools to create, store, manager and publish information about digital cultural heritage in Europe.

• Production module for creating, editing and managing records

• Publication module for creating a website to provide users with access to published records

MICHAEL Data Model The MICHAEL platform implements the MICHAEL

data model which covers: Institutions (creator, owner, keeper, manager) Projects / programmes (funding) Services / products (giving access) Physical collections (represented full or in part)

is based on: RSLP now Dublin Core Collection application profile Very close to NISO Metasearch specification

Architecture

The MICHAEL platform is an open source application based on open source technologies including:

Apache Cocoon, Excalibur, Apache Lucene, SDX, XDepo, eXist, xalan, xerces, XML, XSL, xQuery and Apache Tomcat

Components are created, initiated and destroyed in an Excalibur container

Metadata is stored in an eXist database.

Production module: XDepo a Cocoon-based tool for creating and managing

XML documents. Used by the production module to administer all

records. There are three layers:

Presentation layer built in Cocoon forms, business logic built in Java beans data (stored in the eXist XML database).

Data is read from the eXist database by XQueries Data storage uses the eXist java API.

Publishing module: SDX

A Cocoon based component that provides indexing, search and display services for XML documents.

Used by the publication module to create search indices and store XML documents in repositories.

Provides metadata via the OAI protocol. Uses the Apache Lucene search engine Uses XSP of Cocoon to visualize published records

Hardware and software requirements

A typical installation requires an Intel based dual core or bi-processor server with 2GB of RAM.

The operating system can be: Windows, Linux, various UNIX, MAC OS X, etc.

Web server, e.g. Apache HTTPD server. Tomcat 5.0.x with Java 1.4.x or Tomcat 5.5.x with Java 1.5.x ImageMagik

Installing the platform

1. Download the MICHAEL 1.7 platform release at: http://www.michael-culture.org/en/software (a single zip file)

2. Unzip the file in the $TOMCAT/webapps directory

3. Start Tomcat

4. And log in!

Homepage

The homepage provides access to important folders, useful searches and other information.

Data entry form – showing controlled vocabularies

Customizing your MICHAEL production module

1. Assigning a unique national prefix for records in your instance (country code)

2. Translating the user interface

3. Translating the MICHAEL terminology lists

4. Translating users’ homepages and directories

Data entry forms

May be customized, for example: By changing the default value for a field Choosing different form widgets (e.g.

Checkboxes, radio buttons, pull-downs) Hiding fields Closing list fields or even by Adding fields

Localized production module

Publication module

Installed at the same time as the production module

On installation you have a series of HTML pages with embedded functionality Simple search, browse, advanced

search, display

It provides developers with a tool-box

Customizing the publication module

You need to translate the user interface (national languages)

You can also: Modify the CSS to alter the display Modify headers to include your images Alter the record display (add or hide fields) Add new browse options

European architecture

Each partner country or region installs and customizes a MICHAEL instance

Each instance incorporates OAI repositories Each instance uses common terminology

resources which are translated and provided to the European Service

MICHAEL records are licenced for re-use on a Non-Commercial Share-Alike basis

MICHAEL OAI repositories

There are OAI-PMH repositories for each of the five MICHAEL entities: Digital collection, institution, service, Project Physical collection

Three export formats are supported: oai_dc = Dublin Core oai_michael = Michael schema (terms are coded) oai_complete = Enriched Michael records (terms are de-coded

all relations expanded)

Oai-michal format

Coded values

Records in the European service

MICHAEL Plus workshop, 2007

Websites

MICHAEL software downloads and documentation: http://www.michael-culture.org/en/software

SourceForge project: http://sourceforge.net/projects/michael/

Thanks for listening

Kate Fernie

kfernie@tiscali.co.uk

www.michael-culture.org/