Marijane,

Yes, I would encourage you to ask for help on the blacklight list,  
with specifics about the problems you're having.  We've set up  
Blacklight on a bunch of non-Marc Solr indexes here.

- Naomi

On Jan 6, 2010, at 1:32 PM, marijane white wrote:

> I've read about Blacklight's ability to run on any Solr index, but  
> I've
> struggled to make it work with mine.  Honestly, I've been left with  
> the
> impression that my data should be in MARC if I want to use it.  Is  
> there
> some documentation on this somewhere that I've overlooked?  (Maybe I  
> should
> ask this on the BL list....)
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 12:24 PM, Naomi Dushay <[log in to unmask]>  
> wrote:
>
>> Marijane,
>>
>> It also makes sense to examine the available software for what you  
>> wish to
>> accomplish.  Available software goes beyond current features to
>> - maintainability  (one reason Stanford switched to Blacklight)    
>> I'll talk
>> a little bit about this in our Code4Lib 2010 presentation about  
>> testing.
>> - community
>> - active development
>> - potential applicability to additional projects.   (we like  
>> Blacklight for
>> its ability to run on any solr index, regardless of what's in there)
>>
>> probably some other stuff I've left out.
>>
>> Our experience at Stanford Libraries is that the common conventions  
>> of
>> Rails give us a lot more ease in reading each others' code.
>>
>> - Naomi
>>
>>
>> On Jan 5, 2010, at 3:04 PM, marijane white wrote:
>>
>> Greetings Code4Lib,
>>>
>>> Long time lurker, first time poster here.
>>>
>>> I've been turning over this question in my mind for a few weeks  
>>> now, and
>>> Joe
>>> Hourcle's postscript in the Online PHP Course thread has prompted  
>>> me to
>>> finally try to ask it. =)
>>>
>>> I'm interested in hearing how the members of this list have gone  
>>> about
>>> choosing development platforms for their library coding projects  
>>> and/or
>>> existing open source projects (ie like VuFind vs Blacklight).  For
>>> example,
>>> did you choose a language you already were familiar with?  One you  
>>> wanted
>>> to
>>> learn more about?  Does your workplace have a standard enterprise
>>> architecture/platform that you are required to use?  If you have  
>>> chosen to
>>> implement an existing open source project, did you choose based on  
>>> the
>>> development platform or project maturity and features or something  
>>> else?
>>>
>>> Some background -- thanks to my undergraduate computer engineering
>>> studies,
>>> I have a pretty solid understanding of programming fundamentals,  
>>> but most
>>> of
>>> my pre-LIS work experience was in software testing and did not  
>>> require me
>>> to
>>> employ much of what I learned programming-wise, so I've mostly  
>>> dabbled
>>> over
>>> the last decade or so.  I've got a bit of experience with a bunch of
>>> languages and I'm not married to any of them.   I also kind of  
>>> like having
>>> excuses to learn new ones.
>>>
>>> My situation is this: I would like to eventually implement a  
>>> discovery
>>> tool
>>> at MPOW, but I am having a hell of a time choosing one.  I'm a solo
>>> librarian on a content team at a software and information services
>>> company,
>>> so I'm not really tied to the platforms used by the software  
>>> engineering
>>> teams here.  I know a bit of Ruby, so I've played with Blacklight  
>>> some,
>>> got
>>> it to install on Windows and managed to import a really rough Solr  
>>> index.
>>> I'm more attracted to the features in VuFind, but I don't know  
>>> much PHP
>>> yet
>>> and I haven't gotten it installed successfully yet.  My collection's
>>> metadata is not in an ILS (yet) and not in MARC, so I've also  
>>> considered
>>> trying out more generic approaches like ajax-solr (though I don't  
>>> know a
>>> lot
>>> of javascript yet, either).  I've also given a cursory look at  
>>> SOPAC and
>>> Scriblio.  My options are wide open, and I'm having a rough time  
>>> deciding
>>> what direction to go in.  I guess it's kind of similar to someone  
>>> who is
>>> new
>>> to programming and attempting to choose their first language to  
>>> learn.
>>>
>>> I will attempt to head off a programming language religious war =)  
>>> by
>>> stating that I'm not really interested in the virtues of one  
>>> platform over
>>> another, moreso the abstract reasons one might have for selecting  
>>> one.
>>> Have any of you ever been in a similar situation?  How'd you get  
>>> yourself
>>> unstuck?  If you haven't, what do you think you might do in a  
>>> situation
>>> like
>>> mine?
>>>
>>>
>>> -marijane
>>>
>>