Stuart Lewis has released EasyDeposit, a toolkit for creating SWORD deposit interfaces.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

EasyDeposit allows you to create customised SWORD deposit interfaces by configuring a set of 'steps'. A typical flow of steps may be: login, select a repository, enter some metadata, upload a file, verify the information is correct, perform the deposit, send a confirmation email. Alternatively a deposit flow may just require a file to be uploaded and a title entered. A configuration file is used to list the steps you require.

EasyDeposit makes use of the CodeIgniter MVC PHP framework. This means each 'step' is made up of two files: a 'controller' which looks after the validation and processing of any data entered, and a 'view' which controls the web page that a user sees. This separation of concerns makes it easy for web programmers to edit the controllers, and web designers to tinker with the look and feel of the interface in the views.

Harvard University Library's Office for Information Systems has released File Information Tool Set version 0.3.1.

Here's an excerpt from the user guide:

The File Information Tool Set (FITS) identifies, validates and extracts technical metadata for a wide range of file formats. It acts as a wrapper, invoking and managing the output from several other open source tools. Output from these tools are converted into a common format, compared to one another and consolidated into a single XML output file. FITS is written in Java and is compatible with Java 1.5 or higher. The external tools currently used are:

• Jhove
• Exiftool
• National Library of New Zealand Metadata Extractor
• DROID
• FFIdent
• File Utility (windows)

The Library of Congress has established procedures to release open source software.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

"The overall effect will be to clarify and streamline the process for releasing software as open source," said Michelle Springer, a digital initiatives project manager at the Library, "allowing the Library and its partners to more fully participate in the open source development community."

The Library has been especially active in developing tools that support digital preservation processes, including the secure transfer of digital files. This includes the release of a full suite of digital content transfer tools that support the Bagit specification.

These tools marked the first release of Library-authored open source software to a public repository. The tools were first registered on SourceForge in December 2008 and are available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/loc-xferutils/. While Sourceforge was the first external repository to host Library code, other repositories may be used in the future.

Source code originating from the Library may only be distributed as open source if developed by Library staff or under a contract granting the Library the necessary distribution rights. Additionally, the code cannot be based or dependent on any proprietary software and must be releasable without restrictions or cost.

Works created by Library of Congress staff will be designated in the code comments as a work within the public domain. The addition of the public domain notation in the code comments serves the function of letting developers know that section of the code is free for reuse even if the Library's code is incorporated into a software project with a more restrictive license.

Not all software repositories offer the option of a public domain designation. Under those circumstances the Library will apply the most permissive license possible. BSD-style licenses are being used by multiple National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program partners.

Infrae has released MOAI 1.0.7, a standalone OAI-PMH server that can “can be used in combination with any repository software that comes with an OAI feed.”

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

MOAI is a platform for aggregating content from different sources, and publishing it through the Open Archive Initiatives protocol for metadata harvesting. It's been built for academic institutional repositories dealing with relational metadata and asset files. . . .

More specifically MOAI has the ability to:

• Harvest data from different kinds of sources
• Serve many OAI feeds from one MOAI server, each with their own configuration
• Turn metadata values into OAI sets on the fly, creating new collections
• Use OAI sets to filter records shown in a feed, configurable for each feed
• Work easily with relational data (e.g. if an author changes, the publication should also change)
• Simple and robust authentication through integration with the Apache webserver
• Serve assets via Apache while still using configurable authentication rules

The Open Library Environment (OLE) project has become a Kuali Foundation project.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Kuali Foundation, Inc., is pleased to announce that a group of leading academic research libraries is partnering in the Kuali Open Library Environment (OLE) (pronounced Oh-LAY) project to develop software created specifically for the complex business management and workflow operations of academic and research libraries. . . .

More than 300 libraries, educational institutions, professional organizations, and businesses participated in some phase of planning for the OLE project, which was supported by a planning grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and led by Duke University. Based on that broad insight, OLE will create a next-generation library system that breaks away from print-based workflows and reflects the changing nature of library materials and new approaches to scholarly work. The project is designed to work well with other enterprise systems and to be easily modified to suit the needs of different institutions.

Consistent with the values of the Kuali Foundation, the resulting software will be made freely available to libraries around the world, which will then also contribute their expertise and enhancements through community processes that work for the library community. The project will build on the far-reaching expertise of its current and future partners. . . .

Integrated library systems, composed of relational databases and the application software to support them, are used to track materials within library collections, from ordering and paying for them to loaning them to library patrons. Because large academic research libraries are responsible for managing and providing access to millions of items, the need to be more proactive in software development is especially acute in light of the workflow needed to manage and curate a varied digital collection that includes leased electronic journal content and owned special collections. . . .

Kuali OLE partners include Indiana University (lead); Florida Consortium (University of Florida representing Florida International University, Florida State University, New College of Florida, Rollins College, University of Central Florida, University of Miami, University of South Florida, the Florida Center for Library Automation); Lehigh University; Triangle Research Libraries Network, represented by Duke University and North Carolina State University; University of Chicago; University of Maryland; University of Michigan; and the University of Pennsylvania.

Version 1.1 of Omeka has been released. Omeka is a "free and open source collections based web-based publishing platform for scholars, librarians, archivists, museum professionals, educators, and cultural enthusiasts."

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

In 1.1., users will have more control over their installation through the admin interface, such as:

• Toggling more easily between the public site and the item and collection pages by clicking on a new "View on Public Site" link;
• Browsing through more than 10 collections;
• Managing and upgrading plugins;
• Displaying only item fields containing metadata on the public site with a new setting in the theme panel (without needing to edit on the server).

Read more about it at "Release Notes for 1.1."

The Archivists Toolkit version 2.0 has been released.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

New features added to AT 2.0 include:

1. Revised Digital Object module, so that Digital Object records can be created and managed independent of Resource records.
2. Tab-delimited Digital Object import
3. Batch export of Digital Objects
4. Assessment module
5. New reports for Digital Object and Assessment modules
6. Revision of all other reports (Names, Subjects, Accessions, Resources)
7. Improved stylesheets for EAD to PDF and EAD to HTML outputs
8. Bug fixes as noted in release notes

Read more about it at "New/Updated Features for AT Release 2.0."

The Public Knowledge Project has released Open Journal Systems 2.3.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

OJS 2.3.0 introduces a major rewrite of core aspects of PKP applications that reconciles common code (e.g. shared between OJS, OCS, and the Harvester) into a separate library called the PKP Web Application Library (WAL). Many parts of the system have been changed in a way that is transparent to users but that will vastly improve maintainability and the ease with which PKP can deploy fixes and new features across multiple applications. Wherever possible, this has been done in a way that minimizes code breakage e.g. for modified installs of OJS and custom plugins.

Read more about it at "OJS 2.3: What's New."

Fedora Commons has released "Getting Started with Fedora."

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The "Getting Started with Fedora" Guide is designed to offer new users, or potential users, a basic understanding of the Fedora architecture and the core repository management software, along with some general ideas about how to use it. Whether you want to adopt one of the existing Fedora-based solutions or develop you own, this general introduction should be useful to you.

The SWORD PHP library version 0.9 has been released. SWORD is "a lightweight protocol for depositing content from one location to another. It stands for Simple Web-service Offering Repository Deposit and is a profile of the Atom Publishing Protocol (known as APP or ATOMPUB)."

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

• Changed swordappservicedocument to build the servcedocument from the xml response rather than having the swordappclient do the work. This allows the service document to be parsed at a later time.
• Changed the swordappclient deposit method to stream the file being deposited straight from disk rather than via memory to avoid using excessive memory and potentially exceeding the PHP memory limit. I’ve successfully tested this against DSpace with deposits of 600MB CD images.
• Added some validation to the SWAP/METS packager to allow it to cope with filenames and metadata containing ampersands