The Fedora Project JA-SIG Winter Conference December 9, 2003 Tim Sigmon University of Virginia

This Fedora Project is not the Redhat Fedora project.

The Fedora Project Fedora Digital Object Repository System –Extensible digital object model –Repository System exposed via Web service APIs –Scalable, persistent storage for content and metadata –Local and remote content –Associate services with objects –Content versioning Fedora Use cases –Content Management (CMS) –Digital Library architecture –Digital Asset Management –Institutional Repository –Scholarly publishing –Preservation Open source software

Priorities for digital libraries Priorities for digital libraries Managing digital resources as if they are all the same Delivering digital resources as if they are all unique and free to participate in any number of contexts Supporting digital scholarship wherever it may lead

Shortcomings of commercial digital library products Narrow focus on specific media formats (e.g. image databases, document management) Fail to effectively address interrelationships among digital entities Fail to address interoperability Fail to provide facilities for managing programs and tools that deliver digital content. Not extensible; do not enable easy integration of new tools and services

Fedora History Research (1997-present) : –DARPA and NSF-funded research project at Cornell (Carl Lagoze and Sandy Payette) –Reference implementation developed at Cornell First Application ( ) : –University of Virginia digital library prototype (Thorny Staples and Ross Wayland) –Scale/stress testing for 10,000,000 objects Open Source Software (2002-present): –Andrew W. Mellon Foundation granted Virginia and Cornell $1 million to develop a production-quality Fedora system –Fedora 1.0 released in May 2003 –

Fedora 1.x Architecture Software Release 1.2 Features Demo Use Cases

Persistent ID (PID) Disseminators SystemMetadata Datastreams Globally unique persistent id Public view: access methods for obtaining “disseminations” of digital object content Internal view: metadata necessary to manage the object Protected view: content that makes up the “basis” of the object Digital Object Model Architectural View

Persistent ID (PID) Default Disseminators Simple Image SystemMetadata Datastreams Digital Object Model Example Disseminators Get Profile List Items Get Item List Methods Get DC Record Get Thumbnail Get Medium Get High Get VeryHigh

Persistent ID (PID) Behavior Definition Metadata SystemMetadata Datastreams Data Object Persistent ID (PID) Service Binding Metadata (WSDL) SystemMetadata Datastreams Web Service Object Behavior Contracts behavior contract behavior subscription data contract Persistent ID (PID) Disseminators Datastreams System Metadata Behavior Mechanism Object Behavior Definition Object

DEMO: Basic Use Cases Image (multiple datastreams) Image (Mr. SID) EAD (Rita Mae Brown papers) Text conversion (TEI to PDF) Basic Search

Application Users access data objects through behaviors (or disseminations). Dynamic data services

Managers have direct access to each component of a data object.

Fedora and Web Services Fedora Repository system is a web service –Access/Search (API-A) and Management (API-M) –Service descriptions published using WSDL –Both SOAP and HTTP bindings Back-end services –Digital object behaviors implemented as linkages to other distributed web services –Service binding metadata (WSDL) stored in special Fedora Behavior Mechanism objects. –Fedora acts as mediator to these services.

Fedora Repository System Client and Web Service Interactions Fedora Repository System Content Transform Service Content Transform Service user Web Service Dispatch Web Service Service BackendFrontend client application client application web browser user

Fedora Repository Service Interfaces Management Service (API-M) –Ingest - XML-encoded object submission –Create - interactive object creation via API requests –Maintain - interactive object modification via API requests –Validate – application of integrity rules to objects –Identify - generate unique object identifiers –Security - authentication and access control –Preserve - automatic content versioning and audit trail –Export - XML-encoded object formats Access Service (API-A and API-A-LITE) –Search - search repository for objects –Object Reflection - what disseminations can the object provide? –Object Dissemination - request a view of the object’s content OAI-PMH Provider Service –OAI-DC records

Fedora Repository System

Fedora 1.2 Software Feature Set Open Fedora APIs –Repository as web services (REST and SOAP bindings); WSDL interface defs Flexible Digital Object Model –Content View: objects as bundle of items (content and metadata) –Service View: objects as a set of service methods (“behaviors”) –Extensible functionality by associating services with objects Repository System –Core Services: Management, Access/Search, OAI-PMH –Storage: XML object store; relational db object cache; relational db object registry –Mediation - auto-dispatching to distributed web services for content transformation –Auto-Indexing – system metadata and DC record of each object –HTTP Basic Authentication and Access Control –Built-in disseminator services: XSLT x-form, image manipulation, xml-to-PDF Content Versioning –Automatic version control (saves version of content/metadata when modified) –Enables date-time stamped API requests (see object as it looked at a point in time) Clients –Fedora Administrator: GUI client to create/maintain objects –Default Web browser interface: search; access objects via default disseminator –Command line utilities (batch load, ingest, purge, others) –Migration Utility – mass export/ingest

Fedora Software Distribution Package Open Source (Mozilla Public License) 100% Java (Sun Java J2SDK1.4) Supporting Technologies –Apache Tomcat 4.1 and Apache Axis (SOAP) –Xerces for XML parsing and validation –Saxon 6.5 for XSLT transformation –Schematron 1.5 for validation –MySQL and Mckoi relational database –Oracle 9i support Deployment Platforms –Windows 2000, NT, XP –Solaris –Linux

DEMO: Basic Use Cases Image (multiple datastreams) Image (Mr. SID) EAD (Rita Mae Brown papers) Text conversion (TEI to PDF) Basic Search

Projects using Fedora University of Virginia: digital library (images, EAD, e-texts)EAD Tufts University: educational (VUE/concept maps); digital library VTLS: basis for new commercial product (library system) Indiana University: EVIA Digital Archive (video) EVIA Digital Archive Northwestern: academic technologies (images, art, video, e- texts)imagesart Rutgers University: digital library (e-journals, numeric data) Yale University: Electronic Records Archive New York University: Humanities Computing Group

Fedora Downloads since May 2003 Total downloads: >1500 Average downloads per day: 9 # Countries: 32 Types of orgs: –Universities: libraries, IT, departments –Software and technology companies –Defense/military –Banks –National libraries and archives –Publishers –Research labs –Library automation vendors –Scholarly societies

Future Software Releases Fedora Object XML (FOXML) –Internal storage format; direct expression of Fedora object model –Better support for relationships (“kinship” metadata) –Better support for audit trail (event history) –Format identifiers for dynamic service binding Shibboleth authentication Policy Enforcement –XACML expression language –Fedora policy enforcement module Web interface for easy content submission Batch object modification utility Administrative Reporting Object Event History (ABC/RDF disseminations) Better support for “collections” New ingest and export formats (METS1.3, DIDL) December 2003 – December 2004

Future Development Proposals Digital Library in a Box –Full-featured DL application with “Fedora inside” –Optimized for common set of content types Fedora Power Server –Integrity Management Tools –Service and link liveness checker –Fault Tolerance –Mirroring and Replication –Peer-to-peer interoperability features –Repository clustering –Load balancing Object Creation Tools –Workflow applications based on content models –Web interface for document/content submission

Questions?