Research Seminars

A retrospective look at Greenstone: Lessons from the first decade

David Bainbridge
University of Waikato, New Zealand

Wednesday 6th June 2007, 4:00pm, Room 105

Abstract

The Greenstone Digital Library Software has been influential in spreading the practical impact of digital library technology throughout the world, with a particular emphasis on developing countries. As Greenstone enters its second decade, this talk takes a retrospective look at its development, the challenges that have been faced, and the lessons that have been learned in developing and deploying a comprehensive open-source system for the construction of digital libraries internationally. Not surprisingly, the most difficult challenges have been political, educational, and sociological, echoing that old programmers’ blessing “may all your problems be technical ones.”

Bio

David Bainbridge is currently taking a sabbatical from his senior lecturer post at the University of Waikato, New Zealand through an EPSRC visiting fellowship. He holds a PhD in computer science from the University of Canterbury where he studied as a Commonwealth Scholar. Since moving to Waikato in 1996, he has developed his interest in digital media, with an emphasis on music. He is co-author with Ian Witten of the book, How to Build a Digital Library, and has published in the areas of image processing, music information retrieval, digital libraries, data compression, and text mining. David has also worked as a research engineer for Thorn EMI and graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1991 as the class medalist.