You had me with the compelling illustration.  :)

I haven't implemented every piece in the puzzle, but it seems like a viable
setup.

On 6/25/07, Eric Lease Morgan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
> Below is some text I wrote outlining the technical infrastructure for
> at thing we colloquially call the "catholic
> portal" (www.catholicresearch.net). Does the infrastructure make
> sense to y'all? If it doesn't make sense to you, then it won't make
> sense to non-technoweenies.
>
> Catholic Research Resources Initiative and its technical infrastructure
>
> This text outlines the proposed technical infrastructure for the
> Catholic Research Resources Initiative (CRRI).
>
> The infrastructure begins with two assumptions. First, from the
> user's point of view, the system provides a searchable/browsable
> interface to sets of EAD (Encoded Archival Document) files. Second,
> the system makes every effort to provide this interface through well-
> established Web-based protocols thus making the underlying components
> more modular.
>
> Figure 1 illustrates the proposal. Starting on the far left are sets
> of EAD files. These files will be created remotely at partner
> institutions and sent to a central location. Once received metadata
> will be extracted and stored in a relational database along with the
> entire EAD files. This metadata, in combination with a simple faceted
> classification system, will provide a way to maintain and logically
> organize the CRRI content. We propose to use MySQL as the relational
> database and a set of object-oriented Perl modules called MyLibrary
> to facilitate input/output against the database. [1, 2]
>
> To facilitate search, a report will be written against the database
> and given to an indexing program. The indexer/search engine is
> expected to support fielded, free-text, and full-text searching, as
> well as relevancy ranking. More importantly, the search engine is
> expected to be accessible through a Web Services-based protocol
> called SRU (Search-Retrieve via URL). [3] This will enable other
> information services to search the CRRI without using the CRRI
> website. Examples of other information services include metasearch
> interfaces now common in libraries. The use of SRU will also enable
> the CRRI to exchange its underlying indexing program without changing
> the user interface. We plan to use either Zebra, Kinosearch, or
> Lucene as our indexing program. [4, 5, 6]
>
> To facilitate browse the increasingly popular "faceted navigation"
> technique will be employed. Using the metadata contained in the EAD
> files, very broad "facets" will be created. Examples include
> subjects, formats, people, institutions, themes, and maybe dates.
> Each facet will have associated with it sets of "terms" such as
> African Americans, letters, Dorothy Day, Seton Hall University, or
> Catholic Social Action. Through a second set of reports, these facet/
> term combinations will be displayed in a user's browser, and by
> selecting them relevant content will be returned.
>
> To broaden access to the CRRI's content, a third set of reports will
> be written against the database to enable OAI-PMH (Open Archives
> Initiative - Protocol for Metadata Harvesting). [7] These reports
> will result in the creation of sets of XML files saved to the
> computer's file system. An OAI "data repository" application will
> provide access to the files and enable OAI "service providers" to
> read the metadata and use it in other applications. We plan to use
> XMLFile for the data repository. [8] An example of a service provider
> is OAIster. [9]
>
>
> Links
>
> 1. MySQL - http://mysql.com
> 2. MyLibrary - http://dewey.library.nd.edu/mylibrary
> 3. SRU - http://loc.gov/standards/sru
> 4. Zebra - http://indexdata.dk/zebra
> 5. Kinosearch - http://rectangular.com/kinosearch
> 6. Lucene - http://lucene.apache.org
> 7. OAI-PMH - http://openarchives.org
> 8. XMLFile - http://www.dlib.vt.edu/projects/OAI/software/xmlfile
> 9. OAIster - http://oaister.org
>
> --
> Eric Lease Morgan
> University Libraries of Notre Dame
>