Software:Blacklight
Initial release | October 30, 2009 |
---|---|
Written in | Ruby |
Type | Library and information science software |
License | Apache License |
Website | projectblacklight |
Blacklight is an open-source Ruby on Rails engine for creating search interfaces on top of Apache Solr indices. The software is used by libraries to create discovery layers or institutional repositories; by museums and archives to highlight digital collections; and by other information retrieval projects.
History
The University of Virginia began developing Blacklight based on its Collex scholarly publishing software, which also used Ruby and Rails and Solr.[1] The goals of the project included improving the user experience over contemporary OPAC systems, particularly with regard to relevance ranking, and showcasing historically underutilized library collections.[2]
Features
Blacklight includes support faceted browsing, relevance-based searching, bookmarking documents, permanent URLs for documents.[3] It is relatively simple to customize Blacklight, typically by writing Ruby code that overrides default Blacklight code.[4] There are several plugins available for Blacklight as well, including an extension for geospatial data,[5] a digital exhibit creation tool,[6] and various search and user interface features.
Implementations
- Early adopters of Blacklight include libraries at University of Virginia, Stanford University, North Carolina State University, WGBH Open Vault, and University of Wisconsin–Madison.[7]
- The National Radio Astronomy Observatory uses Blacklight to provide access to data about telescopes, papers, conference proceedings, and theses.[8]
- The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists used Blacklight with Apache Tika to comb through the 11.5 million documents from Mossack Fonseca popularly known as the Panama Papers.[9]
See also
References
- ↑ Cohen, Laura B. (2007). "Adapting an Open-Source Scholarly Web 2.0 System for Findability in Library Collections or: Frankly, Vendors, We Don't Give a Damn". Library 2.0 initiatives in academic libraries. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries. pp. 58–72. ISBN 9780838984529. https://archive.org/details/library20initiat0000unse/page/58.
- ↑ Eden, Brad; Sadler, Bess (6 March 2009). "Project Blacklight: a next generation library catalog at a first generation university". Library Hi Tech 27 (1): 57–67. doi:10.1108/07378830910942919.
- ↑ Kang, Hyeran (23 September 2011). "A new interface for IUCAT: Blacklight". https://blogs.libraries.indiana.edu/redux/2011/09/23/iucat-blacklight/. Retrieved 19 July 2016.
- ↑ "Configuring and Customizing Blacklight". https://github.com/projectblacklight/blacklight/wiki/Configuring-and-Customizing-Blacklight. Retrieved 19 July 2016.
- ↑ "GeoBlacklight". http://geoblacklight.org/projects/geoblacklight/index.html. Retrieved 19 July 2016.
- ↑ "Spotlight". Project Blacklight. http://spotlight.projectblacklight.org/. Retrieved 19 July 2016.
- ↑ Cartolano, Robert T. (4 November 2015). History of Blacklight. doi:10.7916/D8J38S9M.
- ↑ DuPlain, Ron; Balser, Dana S.; Radziwill, Nicole M. (19 July 2010). "Build great web search applications quickly with Solr and Blacklight". Software and Cyberinfrastructure for Astronomy. doi:10.1117/12.857899.
- ↑ Hackett, Robert (11 April 2016). "The Panama Papers Search Tool Began as an Academic Skunkworks Project". Fortune. http://fortune.com/2016/04/11/panama-papers-search-project-blacklight/. Retrieved 19 July 2016.