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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 >>> >>