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IU Libraries receives $1.2 million grant to develop ability to search digitized files

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Ryan Steans
Nov 6, 2018

Indiana University has received a $1.2 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in conjunction with New York Public Library, University of Texas at Austin and information management consultant AVP in order to develop a scalable Audiovisual Metadata Platform, known as AMP, to generate searchable time-stamped descriptions for audiovisual content.  

Read more at the Indiana University website.

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Avalon on the Road! Samvera Connect 2018 and DLF Forum 2018

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Ryan Steans
Oct 26, 2018

 

 

In October 2018, Avalon Media System team members attended two conferences - Samvera Connect 2018 in Salt Lake City and Digital Library Federation Forum 2018 in Las Vegas.

 

Samvera Connect 2018

 

Each year, Samvera Connect provides the Samvera Community with 3 days of conference and a day of workshops to help coordinate and drive the Samvera technologies and communities forward.  This year the event was held at the University of Utah's Marriott Library.  

 

Marriott Library at the University of Utah. Giant letters spell out "IMAGINE U"

 

Members of the Indiana and Northwestern University teams attended workshops on Tuesday October 9th.  Community Tech Lead Chris Colvard and developer Brian Keese (both from Indiana) led a workshop on this day entitled "Enhanced media playback in a Hyrax app using Avalon components".  The session was well attended, and provided food for thought for Avalon users and other Samvera community members considering time based media in their Samvera installations.

 

Chris Colvard leads a training session at the Marriott Library at Utah

 

Other events related to Avalon (abstracts from the conference)

 
Wednesday – Plenary
 
Avalon Update - Jon Dunn (Northwestern), Carolyn Caizzi & Ryan Steans (Northwestern)
Description: Avalon will demonstrate how an initial plan to re-architect Avalon Media System utilizing the Hyrax stack has paired with efforts to ensure greater sustainability of both Avalon and Samvera as framework and community. Following that goal, the past year the Avalon team has made terrific strides toward the development of Avalon 7, in part through community collaborative work with Hyrax and Samvera teams. Additionally, we'll cover work aimed at preservation and scaled hosting of Avalon, as well as a range of activities including IIIF development for audiovisual media, collaborations with Avalon users, new features such as OHMS integration, our participation in community interest and working groups, and our efforts at outreach to find and assist new and potential users.
 
Wednesday - Poster Session 
 
Avalon 7 Roadmap – Development to Sustainability - Maria Whitaker (Indiana) and Ryan Steans (Northwestern)
 
 
Thursday – Avalon Related Sessions
 
My Life in Ops: Docker, Terraform, AWS, and Learning As We Go - Michael B. Klein, David Schober (Northwestern)
Over the past two years, Northwestern University Libraries has moved its repository infrastructure and applications to Amazon Web Services. Our initial solution, presented at Samvera Connect 2017, involved AWS CloudFormation, several different deployment platforms, and a lot of manual intervention. In our second phase, we have adopted a fully automated build/configure/deploy system to stand up Fedora, Solr, PostgreSQL, Redis, a Cantaloupe IIIF server, an Avalon Media System instance, a secure CloudFront streaming media distribution, and two Hyrax applications using Terraform, Docker, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, and a whole bunch of homegrown tools and hacks. This presentation will provide an overview of our current system, and hopefully jumpstart some discussions of how these tools can be adopted, standardized, and reused among other members of the Samvera community.
 
Avalon and IIIF for Audio and Video - Chris Colvard, Brian Keese, Maria Whitaker (Indiana) Adam Arling (Northwestern)
For the past year, Avalon Media System has worked alongside members of the IIIF Community to co-develop the specifications for IIIF Presentation API version 3. This version moves beyond the two-dimensional image plane to include audio and video within the scope of media which can utilize IIIF to describe and manage content for use and re-use both with Avalon and by any viewer capable of presenting an object with a IIIF manifest. Avalon is excited about the possibilities for incorporating shareable structural metadata, as well as the ability to incorporate metadata along the timeline of time-based media. We will provide an overview of IIIF and the application of IIIF to AV content, including structural metadata and other features derived from the IIIF API.
 
Avalon's Audiovisual Work Type: Incorporating Metadata Changes for Hyrax - Jen Young (Northwestern)
Avalon has developed an audiovisual work type that will be available for use in Hyrax. This work type will keep all descriptive metadata fields currently available for Avalon and include the use of rightsstatements.org declarations. This presentation will discuss moving from a MODSXML-based work type to a RDF based work type and how that will impact other activities in Avalon such as batch ingest.
 
UI JavaScript Component Architecture for Consistency and Reusability - Adam Arling (Northwestern)
An overview of modern front-end UI component architecture and patterns. Will showcase case studies in development and implementation decisions in Avalon Media System (platform: Hyrax/Webpacker/React) and Northwestern University's Digital Collections application (platform: React/Redux application built on top of Hyrax in AWS). Will make a case for why UI component architecture is important in community-driven, open-source development, how it can directly benefit the Samvera community moving forward.
 
Case Studies in Samvera Integration Approaches with OHMS (Oral History Metadata Synchronizer) - Jon Cameron (Indiana) Ben Armintor (Columbia)
A discussion of different approaches to integrating the standard tools or approaches of a digital scholarship community (the OHMS tool developed by the Nunn Center at University of Kentucky) with existing Samvera digital repository management & publication systems developed by Indiana and Columbia Universities. Presentations will also touch on data serialization, APIs, and external/new developer teams as integration considerations.
 
Samvera and IIIF: Opportunities and Challenges - Jon Dunn (Indiana), Hannah Frost (Stanford), Simeon Warner (Cornell), Adam Wead (Penn State)
Adoption of IIIF within the Samvera community has been growing steadily and with the release of Hyrax 2.1, it will be growing faster. At the same time the IIIF community has grown larger, more distributed, and with use cases that extend beyond the Samvera community. How has IIIF adoption provided opportunities for richer user experiences within your Samvera app or new services altogether? How has IIIF led to rethinking your services and architecture and the role of Samvera within them? How can the Samvera and IIIF community, or IIIF users within the Samvera community, best collaborate?
 
Building on Hyrax and Avalon for the American Archive of Public Broadcasting - Sadie Roosa, Drew Meyer (WGBH)
This presentation will provide an overview of the needs of the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, challenges and successes of building a custom application based on Hyrax and Avalon, features developed both within the application and as re-usable components, and how to represent PBCore metadata in a Samvera application.
 
 
From Salt Lake City, some of our team drove down to Las Vegas while some who couldn't be at Connect flew in to Nevada.  DLF Forum is annual conference addressing general digital library concerns and innovations, both technological and coultural.  This year it took place south of Las Vegas as the M Resort from October 15th - 17th
 
We met with colleagues from across the country, represented Avalon and Samvera at a sponsor table (thanks to Utah University) and co-presented with Lyrasis and Artefactual.
 
Avalon Media System - Developing Toward Sustainability and Community - Jon Cameron (Indiana), Ryan Steans (Northwestern), Carissa Egan (Lyrasis), Ashley Blewer (Artefactual)
 
This panel will focus on Avalon Media System's work toward Collaborative development, preservation workflow integration, and a recent SaaS pilot. Artefactual, a recognized leader in digital preservation, Lyrasis, an innovative digital libraries services provider, and Avalon Media System team members will provide a status report of our progress.
 
And, as the event was in Vegas, we made sure we talked shop while walking the strip with our colleagues.  
 
Ryan Steans (Avalon), Aaron Choate (Univ. of Texas), Ashley Blewer (Artefactual), Bethany Scott & Anne Washington (Univ. of Houston) walk The Strip in Vegas
(l-r, Ryan Steans, Avalon/ Aaron Choate, Univ. of Texas/ Ashley Blewer, Artefactual/ Bethany Scott & Anne Washington, Univ. of Houston) 

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Avalon announces the release of 6.4.4

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Ryan Steans
Sep 19, 2018

The Avalon Team is happy to announce the release of Avalon 6.4.4

What can you expect in this release?

Updates and Changes

  • Embeds are now able to be tracked with Google Analytics - track views of your media played locally in Avalon as well as where you've embedded it in external websites
  • CAPTCHA configurability added to the comments page
  • Minor updates to Avalon Intercom 

Bug Fixes

  • Resolved issues with file paths that arise in certain system configurations
  • Rubyzip dependency updated to avoid security vulnerability

 

Avalon 6.4.4 is now available for download at the Avalon GitHub repository.  

Click here to download and to learn more.

 

For any questions or assistance, please email us at:  avalon-discuss-l@list.indiana.edu

Or find us on Slack at: samvera.slack.com/messages/avalon

Joining a Slack team requires an invitation, but anyone can generate an automatic invite to the Samvera Community slack channel using the following form: Samvera Slack invite

 
 
For upgrade documentation:  https://wiki.dlib.indiana.edu/display/VarVideo/For+System+Administrators
 
Those interested in exploring Avalon should contact us at:  http://www.avalonmediasystem.org/contact
 
Our Github:  https://github.com/avalonmediasystem/

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Avalon Spotlight: Univ. of Alberta Libraries and Chris Want's Contributions to Avalon

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Ryan Steans
Aug 31, 2018
As an open source, community-driven application, the Avalon Media System progresses and improves via contributions from users.  A recent example of how our community supports Avalon can be found in the work from Chris Want at the University of Alberta Libraries.
 
UAL hosts ERA Audio + Video (Education & Research Archive), which utilizes the Avalon Media System.  “Currently [UAL] hosts over 1600 research, instructional, licensed and other types of multimedia resources. Its purpose is to provide a platform for the University of Alberta community to host its own digital audiovisual content in a secure environment built for academic needs, in support of the increasing use of media content in research and teaching. The repository helps to ensure that audio-visual content from the University is properly managed and curated, and will be accessible for many years to come,”  says Weiwei Shi, UAL’s Digital Initiatives Applications Librarian.
 
Lead developer Chris Want has recently worked to upgrade the Avalon 5 system to Avalon 6, migrating data and ensuring the stability of ERA Audio + Video.  During the migration, Chris remained in constant contact with the Avalon core development teams at Northwestern and Indiana Universities, providing us with updates, and uncovering bugs. His work included  an array of useful upstream code changes that have strengthened the Avalon 6 codebase.  
 
By reaching out on Slack, contributing to the Avalon codebase via Github and remaining in close contact, Chris has helped make Avalon 6 a better system for anyone who wishes to jump onboard.  This truly collaborative relationship has paved the way for how Avalon can work with more developers while bringing a better system to the community.
 
However, as Weiwei states, “At the end of the month, we are saying a bittersweet goodbye to Chris as he moves to another position on campus, and we'd like to express our sincere appreciation for the amazing work Chris has done for us over the past few years.”  
 
The Avalon team wishes to express its sincere thanks to Chris Want for his contributions to the Avalon codebase and to the University of Alberta Libraries for allowing Chris to spend the time necessary to share his experience and his code.  We wish Chris the best of luck and look forward to working with UAL again in the future.
 

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Avalon Office Hours to Begin August 28th and Run Weekly through October

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Ryan Steans
Aug 16, 2018

The Avalon Team invites you to join us for Office Hours every week on Tuesdays from August 28th to October 30th.  We're currently piloting a program to enable anyone with an interest in Samvera to spend some time with our team to discuss all things Avalon Media System.

 

For full information, click here.

 

When

Join us on Tuesdays at 2:00 Eastern/ 11:00 Pacific beginning on August 28th

 

Where 

 

We'll have both Slack and BlueJeans webconference options available

 

And, two weeks per month we'll feature special a special focus

 

Focus on Deployment and Support

August 28th and September 25th

Avalon Community Tech Lead Chris Colvard and Phuong Dinh will be available to discuss Avalon implementation and management & maintenance of your Avalon System.

 

Focus on Avalon Roadmap and Community

September 4th and October 2nd

Product owners David Schober and Jon Cameron will discuss work on the Avalon Roadmap, what's going on in the development cycles, and what we're looking at next for Avalon.

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Avalon 6.4.3 Now Available

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Ryan Steans
Aug 6, 2018
Avalon 6.4.3 is now available for download at the Avalon GitHub.  
 
Click here to download and to learn more.
 
This point release corrects issues found in batch upload processes.  
 
  • Files ingested from a dropbox are properly handled when the masterfile management strategy is set to 'move' #2903
  • Batch ingest emails are sent successfully, even when items are deleted by users before the job completes #2892
  • Manifest files are deleted after reading and before any processing has happened to avoid race conditions or other errors #2919

For any questions or assistance, please email us using our contact form.

or join our discussion:  avalon-discuss-l@list.indiana.edu

Or find us on Slack at: 

Avalon Slack team: samvera.slack.com/messages/avalon

Joining a Slack team requires an invitation, but anyone can generate an automatic invite to the Samvera Community slack channel using the following form: Samvera Slack invite

 

 

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OHMS Now Available For Avalon

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Ryan Steans
Jul 12, 2018

Avalon Media System is proud to announce the successful completion of integrations between Avalon, a Samvera solution bundle for audio and video management, and OHMS, the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer.

 

Libraries and archives host rich collections that include audio and video recordings of oral histories and interviews, often first-hand accounts of events important to cultural memory.  While many of these recordings have languished in formats that made them inaccessible to researchers and, in many cases, the public, the combination of OHMS and Avalon can make these oral histories accessible and manageable, leveraging open technologies designed specifically for the specific needs of libraries and archives.

 

The integrations, developed by AVP (formerly AVPreserve), will enable media managers to use the latest version of OHMS to index or connect interview transcripts with video or audio media, managed and stored in the robust Avalon Media System via Avalon's JavaScript player API.  Paired with the powerful time-based search, discovery and navigation features in OHMS, the final product will create a package complete with transcripts and menus derived from user-created metadata, ready for display.  

 

Douglas Boyd of Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries states “Indiana University is the first institution besides the University of Kentucky to make a significant contribution to the OHMS code.  We are always looking for ways to make OHMS a more effective solution and the incorporation of Avalon represents significant step forward for OHMS and Avalon.”

 

This work was supported by the Indiana University Office of the Bicentennial as part of Indiana University’s Bicentennial Oral History Project.  Avalon Media System is developed by Indiana University Libraries and Northwestern University Libraries, with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.  OHMS is developed and managed at the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries and was made open source and free through support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. 

 

For more information regarding Avalon and OHMS, please contact Avalon at:  http://www.avalonmediasystem.org/contact

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Survey: Avalon Training Needs

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Ryan Steans
Jun 20, 2018

Avalon is seeking your input to help us create Avalon Media System specific training.

 

You can tell us what areas would be of the most use for your team when it comes to training, and what works best for you in terms of delivery.  

 

Just fill out this brief survey to give us some ideas.  The survey should only take about 5-10 minutes to complete, and if you have additional ideas for what we could offer, we're all ears.

 

We'll follow up soon to let you know our plans!

 

If you'd like to discuss training in more detail or have other topics of discussion, as always, please use the following channels

  • email the list-serve at:  avalon-discuss-l@list.indiana.edu
  • if you're a Samvera Community member, just look for us on Slack at #avalon
  • or contact the Community Manager directly at:  ryan dot steans at northwestern dot edu

 

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Avalon Sprint Review #153

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Ryan Steans
Jun 12, 2018

Jon Cameron (Indiana) hosts and Adam Arling (Northwestern) stars in Sprint Demo #153 

 

See our first public demo of the IIIF stand-alone player

 

View here

 

Runtime:  6 minutes, 30 seconds

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Avalon Forum - June 13th at 4:00 PM

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Ryan Steans
Jun 11, 2018

Avalon will host the second Avalon monthly forum on Wednesday, June 13th at 4:00 Eastern.

Topics will include:  

  • Northwestern University – Avalon for e-Reserves Media Distribution (Molly Zolnay and Natalie Pelster)
  • Avalon and IIIF for Video (Adam Arling and Brian Keese)

 

The Forum will last approx.. 30 minutes.

 

If you can’t make it, we’ll be posting the presentation video to the Avalon Demo site within the days following.  (Our first Forum is here.)

 

To join the Meeting:

https://bluejeans.com/730726712

 

To join via Room System:

Video Conferencing System: bjn.vc -or-199.48.152.152

Meeting ID : 730726712

 

To join via phone :

 

1)  Dial:

                +1.408.740.7256 (United States)

                +1.888.240.2560 (US Toll Free)

                +1.408.317.9253 (Alternate number)

                (see all numbers - http://bluejeans.com/numbers)

 

2)  Enter Conference ID : 730726712

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