The cross-search functionality in the VSM Portal Demonstrator is now available in JISC MediaHub, as well as a range of film, sound and still image collections.
NOTE: This project website will no longer be maintained and may contain broken links.
The third phase of the project will begin with a review of the current software components. This will be conducted in parallel with the design and specification work to extend the functionality and re-design of the user interface. The main additional functional areas include presentation of search results.
A range of open-source components has been used to implement the portal. The following table provides a non-exclusive list of components that were identified during the scoping phase and used in Phase 2. Additional open-source components may be used to implement portal enhancements during Phase 3. These will be added to the table during the project.
VSM Portal user interface diagram
| User interface | Apache::ASP | Offers fast and easy development, and is extremely flexible. Robust and proven in service environment |
|---|---|---|
| Apache Tomcat | Robust and widely deployed; proven in service environment. | |
| Database: metadata hosted by the portal | Zebra or Pears | Both options provide structured text indexing and retrieval. Both are fast and scale well, and provide powerful and flexible text search capabilities. |
| Database: user data | Postgres | Fast, flexible and robust relational database. |
| Text files | Fast and robust. Not as powerful as a relational database, but very simple with reduced overheads and dependencies. May be preferred to relational database at least in the first instance. | |
| Distributed search broker (enabling multiple concurrent searches; non-blocking, event driven) |
GetRef broker | Developed for the GetRef project. Enables concurrent searching via Z39.50, SRW, SOAP and customized HTTP queries; easily extensible. |
| Net::Z3950::ZOOM | Abstract Perl API supporting search and retrieval with both Z39.50 and SRW, supporting concurrent searches across multiple targets. Robust, flexible and proven in service environment. | |
| Harvester | Two CPAN packages: Also SourceForge package: | Documentation suggests these products will perform the required function. |
| Z39.50 support in Perl | Net::Z3950::ZOOM | Abstract Perl API supporting search and retrieval with both Z39.50 and SRW. Provides a distributed search broker (see above). Robust, flexible and proven in service environment. |
| Z39.50 support in Java | JAFER toolkit | Implementation of a compliant Z39.50 client and server in Java. |
| SRW support in Perl | Net::Z3950::ZOOM | See Z39.50 support above. |
| SRW support in Java | JZKit2 | Documentation suggests the product will perform the required function. |
| SOAP support in Perl | SOAP::Lite | Fast and simple development of SOAP services. |
| SOAP support in Java | AXIS | Powerful toolkit for fast development of SOAP services. |
| Authentication: Shibboleth Athens Locally registered users IP address checking |
EDINA already has software for these mechanisms, deployed in Java and Perl based services. | Already available and tested. |
| Bulletin board (to provide repository for reviews of content, with capacity for discussion) |
YaBB, E-Blah and IkonBoard in Perl; MVN in Java. | Bulletin board systems using preferred languages. |
| Content based image recognition (CBIR) | GNU Image-Finding Tool (GIFT), and Perl MRML client | Documentation and online demonstration suggests the product will perform the required function. |
