California Digital Library Announces Release of XTF Version 3.0

["Lisa Schiff" <Lisa.Schiff@ucop.edu>]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Lisa Schiff
California Digital Library
University of California, Office of the President
415 20th St., 4th Floor
Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 987-0881
lisa.schiff@ucop.edu
http://xtf.cdlib.org

California Digital Library Announces Release of XTF Version 3.0

Oakland, CA, April 5, 2011 - The California Digital Library (CDL) 
is pleased to announce the release of version 3.0 of XTF 
<http://xtf.cdlib.org/>  (http://xtf.cdlib.org/), an open source, 
highly flexible software application that supports the search, 
browse and display of heterogeneous digital content.  XTF 
provides efficient and practical methods for creating customized 
end-user interfaces for distinct digital content collections and 
is used by institutions worldwide.

Highlights from the 3.0 release include:

*  Scanned book display support in default UI
*  Stability improvements to index rotation support
*  Globalization and RSS support
*  Further Unicode improvements
*  Many bug fixes

See the full change log 
<http://xtf.cdlib.org/documentation/changelog/> 
(http://xtf.cdlib.org/documentation/changelog/) for further 
details.

XTF is a combination of Java and XSLT 2.0 that indexes, queries, 
and displays digital objects and is based on open source software 
(e.g. Lucene and Saxon).  XTF can be downloaded from the XTF 
website <http://xtf.cdlib.org/download/> 
(http://xtf.cdlib.org/download/) or from the XTF Project page on 
SourceForge <http://sourceforge.net/projects/xtf/> 
(http://sourceforge.net/projects/xtf/), where the source code can 
also be found.

The XTF website also provides a self-guided tutorial 
<http://xtf.cdlib.org/download/>  and a sample of the default 
installation <http://xtf.cdlib.org:8080/xtf/search> 
(http://xtf.cdlib.org:8080/xtf/search), demonstrating the 
capabilities of the tool out-of-the-box. Both of these resources 
provide a quick view of the capabilities of XTF prior to 
download.

Offering a suite of customizable features that support diverse 
intellectual access to content, XTFinterfaces can be designed to 
support the distinct tools and presentations that are useful and 
meaningful to specific audiences.  In addition, XTF offers the 
following core features:

*  Easy to deploy: Drops directly in to a Java application server 
such as Tomcat or Resin; has been tested on Solaris, Mac, Linux, 
and Windows operating systems.
*  Easy to configure: Can create indexes on any XML element or 
attribute; entire presentation layer is customizable via XSLT.
*  Robust: Optimized to perform well on large documents (e.g., a 
single text that exceeds 10MB of encoded text); scales to perform 
well on collections of millions of documents; provides full 
Unicode support.
*  Extensible:

*  Works well with a variety of authentication systems (e.g., IP 
address lists, LDAP, Shibboleth).
*  Provides an interface for external data lookups to support 
thesaurus-based term expansion, recommender systems, etc.
*  Can power other digital library services (e.g., XTF contains 
an OAI-PMH data provider that allows others to harvest metadata, 
and an SRU interface that exposes searches to federated search 
engines).
*  Can be deployed as separate, modular pieces of a third-party 
system (e.g., the module that displays snippets of matching 
text).

*  Powerful for the end user:

*  Spell checking of queries
*  Faceted displays for browsing
*  Dynamically updated browse lists
*  Session-based bookbags

These basic features can be tuned and modified.  For instance, 
the same bookbag feature that allows users to store links to 
entire books, can also store links to citable elements of an 
object, such as a note or other reference.

Examples of XTF-based applications both within and outside of the 
CDL include:

*  eScholarship <http://www.escholarship.org> 
(http://www.escholarship.org), the University of California's 
open access scholarly publishing and research platform.
*  Mark Twain Project Online <http://www.marktwainproject.org> 
(http://www.marktwainproject.org), developed by the Mark Twain 
Papers Project, the CDL and the University of California Press.
*  Calisphere <http://calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu> 
(http://calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/), a curated 
collection of primary sources keyed to the curriculum standards 
of California's K-12 community, developed by the CDL.
*  Various collections at the University of Sydney, Australia, 
including: Frontiers of Science 
<http://frontiers.library.usyd.edu.au/> , University of Sydney 
Library (http://frontiers.library.usyd.edu.au/); the Sydney 
College of the Arts Archive <http://va.library.usyd.edu.au> 
(http://va.library.usyd.edu.au)
*  The Encyclopedia of Chicago 
<http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/> 
(http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/), developed by the 
Chicago History Museum, The Newberry Library, and Northwestern 
University
*  The Chymistry of Isaac Newton 
<http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/newton/>
(http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/newton/) and The Swinburne 
Project 
<http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/swinburne/www/swinburne/> 
(http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/swinburne/www/swinburne/), 
Indiana University