open source reference desk software at the victorian parliamentary library
DESCRIPTION
Presentation given February 7 2012 at VALA2012 by Robin Gallagher and Peter Neish. Outlines the web-based reference desk software developed by the Victorian Parliamentary Library.TRANSCRIPT
Department of Parliamentary ServicesParliamentary Library
Open Source Reference Desk Software
at the Victorian Parliamentary Library
Robin Gallagher & Peter Neish
Department of Parliamentary ServicesParliamentary Library
Who are our clients?
• Members of Parliament
• Members’ staff (electorate officers, party staff, ministerial staff)
• Parliamentary staff (especially parliamentary committees)
Department of Parliamentary ServicesParliamentary Library
Existing workflow
• Email or telephone queries
• Response emailed or printed and picked up
• Significant or common requests entered into Reference Knowledge Base
• Statistics recorded manually
Department of Parliamentary ServicesParliamentary Library
Workflow problems• Single reference task involved up to 6 separate actions
– Record query– Compile answer– Email client text & attachments– Copy text record & files into RKB– Record reference statistics on monthly form– Transfer statistics once a month to spreadsheet
• Difficult to know:
– what other Reference staff were working on – status of incomplete queries, if staff member absent
Department of Parliamentary ServicesParliamentary Library
Requirements
• Simple to use
• Capture statistics
• Integrate into workflow
• Capture frequent / important queries into our Reference Knowledge Base
Department of Parliamentary ServicesParliamentary Library
What we built
• Web-based tool
• Integrates with LDAP
• Built in JAVA
• uses the Play! framework – MVC
– Hibernate and JPA
– Groovy templating system
Department of Parliamentary ServicesParliamentary Library
Department of Parliamentary ServicesParliamentary Library
Department of Parliamentary ServicesParliamentary Library
Department of Parliamentary ServicesParliamentary Library
Department of Parliamentary ServicesParliamentary Library
Department of Parliamentary ServicesParliamentary Library
Department of Parliamentary ServicesParliamentary Library
Department of Parliamentary ServicesParliamentary Library
Department of Parliamentary ServicesParliamentary Library
Department of Parliamentary ServicesParliamentary Library
Thanks
• Code will be available at github.com/pov