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The OpenIsis society was founded in October 2002 to further the |
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development and dissemination of open source information systems. |
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We support libraries, archives and other public organizations |
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like social movements to manage and retrieve information in a |
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high quality way according to bibliographical principles. |
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Most important is the |
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> OpenIsis |
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database system which was developed by our members since May 2001. |
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OpenIsis is the open source member of the |
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> IsisIntro CDS/ISIS |
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> CdsIsis software family. |
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* who needs quality information systems? |
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Well ... everybody who has quality information. |
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Traditional examples are libraries, where librarians invest much |
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knowledge and experience to make you find the book you need. |
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While the large libraries have a long track of using and developing |
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bibliographic databases, many organizations like worker's unions, |
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charity organizations and social movements have smaller archives |
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of their publications, which ought to be as well accessible. |
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Even for the purely virtual web-archives, newsgroups and mailing lists, |
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it is increasingly understood, that the power of search engines needs |
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to be augmented by quality metadata to be retrieved reliably. |
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Dublin Core and the Resource Description Framework are examples |
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of such approaches based on bibliographical principles. |
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* who needs open source information systems? |
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Many individuals, organizations and institutions can't afford |
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the commercial bibliographic database systems, |
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where even small site licenses start at about 10.000 US$. |
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Therefore, |
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> http://www.unesco.org/webworld/isis/ UNESCO's CDS/ISIS |
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, which is available for a nominal fee, is in widespread use, |
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where the budgets are low. |
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Our |
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> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html free software |
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is not only free of charge, but also free of restrictions. |
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It enables the users to build on it, to improve it, |
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to adopt it to their needs rather than being dependent |
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on the original developers. |
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To close the "digital gap", access to *both* the content |
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and the software is needed. |
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* what about the "Information Society"? |
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Even the techies and librarians at rather well-equiped universities |
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in the US or Europe, which are working on new ways to publish |
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and manage free content, like the |
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> http://www.openarchives.org/ Open Archives Initiative |
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or the |
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> http://oc4s.org/ Open Community for Science |
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, do not have access to the code of existing commercial systems. |
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Following the Linux Economy, we may find that open source |
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is the basis for progress ... |
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... News |