Speaker
Jonathan Rochkind
Johns Hopkins University

DescriptionAll were welcome to attend this free webinar to learn about this open source software that can be used as a front-end for an existing knowledge base. Umlaut deals with specific known citations and full text from multiple data stores (link resolver, catalog, etc.), Amazon and Google links, "cited by" links from licensed vendors, "search inside" links to Amazon, Google, HathiTrust, or anything else you want to write a plugin for. It gives you the ability to switch out the underlying knowledge base products with no interruption to your users. It runs as Ruby on Rails application via an engine gem. Umlaut is also a "link resolver front-end" for an existing knowledge base because it accepts requests in OpenURL format but has no knowledge base of its own.

In this webinar, Jonathan Rochkind, Senior Programmer/Analyst at the Sheridan Libraries at Johns Hopkins University, demonstrated how Umlaut allows you to de-couple your "link resolver" (or "known item service") user-facing UI from your underlying knowledge base products—theoretically making it possible to switch out one vendor's knowledge base product for another with no interruption to your users (or to your local applications using Umlaut's API rather than a specific vendor's proprietary API). Umlaut is a buffer between your knowledge base product(s) and the world.

This was the thirteenth webinar in the OCLC Research Technical Advances for Innovation in Cultural Heritage Institutions (TAI CHI) Webinar Series.

Archived Webinar Files

• Recording (36:34)
  • .wmv (67.64 MB)
  • .mp4 (10.96 MB)
  • on YouTube
  • in iTunes
• Slides (Google Docs: 23 slides)
• Chat Transcript (.pdf: 16 KB/1 pp.)

Related Links

• Umlaut
• Jonathan Rochkind's Bibliographic Wilderness Blog
• OCLC Research Technical Advances for Innovation in Cultural Heritage Institutions (TAI CHI) Webinar Series