

README

This is the README file for MyLibrary version 3.x.

MyLibrary is a true digital library framework and toolbox. Using
MyLibrary is more than possible to:

  * create dynamic Web pages against the underlying content
  * create sets of personal "my library" pages akin to My Yahoo,
    iGoogle, etc.
  * do inventories of your collection
  * do manual data-entry into the system
  * import MARC data into the system
  * import OAI-accessible data into this system
  * index the content and facilitate a search this site feature
  * syndicate content to your institution-wide portal
  * write reports against the system in the form of browsable
    (subject, title, format, etc.) lists

The system is made up of essentially four modules. One to manage
information resources. One to manage people. One to manage librarians.
One to manage a facet/term ontology creating relationships between
items #1, #2, and #3. By doing so a MyLibrary system is expected to
allow people to create their "my library" and do all the things
increasingly expected from information systems such as Find More Like
This, People Who Used This Also Used That, The Most Popular Item Is,
Review, Annotate, Share...  MyLibrary is a set of tools enabling the
creation of things like My Yahoo, iGoogle, etc.

From a technical point of view, MyLibrary is as set of object-oriented
Perl modules designed to facilitate I/O against a specific, underlying
database structure. Each module provides the usual get and set methods
as well as a number of find methods facilitating retrieval of data. Once
the data is retrieved the developer is expected to loop through the set
and export the data in the needed format: HTML, XML, plain text, etc.

Consult the POD documentation/tutorial for instructions on creating
your first MyLibrary:

  perldoc MyLibrary::Tutorial

Visit the MyLibrary home page where you will find sample scripts,
applications, and more documentation:

  http://dewey.library.nd.edu/mylibrary/
  
MyLibrary is distributed as open source software under the GNU Public
License.

Thank you for using MyLibrary!

-- 
Eric Lease Morgan <emorgan@nd.edu>
University Libraries of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556

Robert Fox <rfox2@nd.edu>
University Libraries of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556

June 25, 2007

