Paper presented at 16th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertation conducted by The University of Hongkong Libraries, Hongkong on 24th September 2013.

1. ABCD Open Source Software for Managing
ETD Repositories
Presented by,
Ms. Sangeeta N Dhamdhere, India
Dr. Egbert De Smet, Belgium
Dr. Ramdas Lihitkar, India
Company
Presented at
LOGO
ETD 2013 Symposium
University of Hong Kong Libraries, Hong Kong

2. Overview
1. Introduction
1. Introduction
2. Institutional/Digital Repository
2. Institutional/Digital Repository
3. ETD Repository and Initiatives
3. ETD Repository and Initiatives
4. ABCD Open Source Software
4. ABCD Open Source Software
5. Technical Features of ABCD
5. Technical Features of ABCD
Software for ETD Repository
Software for ETD Repository
Application
Application
6. Illustrations and conclusion
6. Illustrations and conclusion

3. Introduction
Open Access Initiative has removed barriers to accessing scholarly
literature and hence avoiding duplication of research work and
plagiarism.
OAI has its roots in the Open Access and Institutional Repository (IR)
movements. It develops and promotes interoperability standards that
aim to facilitate the efficient dissemination and long-term access to
scholarly literature.
The IRs are playing an important role in giving access to electronic
resources in different format including scholarly publications.
Purpose of this paper:
To give technical information about the application of ABCD Open
Source Software for managing IR of Electronic Theses and
Dissertations at various levels with illustrations.
Methodology used:
Practical method and programming in the ABCD software for building
ETD repository and its management

4. Institutional/Digital Repository
An Institutional Repository is a digital research archive
consisting of accessible collections of scholarly work that
represent the intellectual capital of an institution.
We can say IR as a web-based database (repository) of
scholarly material.
IR collects, stores and disseminates digital resources
and efforts made for long term preservation of
organizational or institutional intellectual property in
digital form

5. ETD Repository
Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD) is an electronic repository system
which comprises information such as concepts and outputs of the latest
researches produced by scholars during their process of cognition, exploration
and analysis.
These ETD Repositories are managed by using digital library software or content
management softwares in many organizations.
Open Source Softwares commonly used for ETD Management all over world are
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6. ABCD Open Source Software
 Automation of liBraries and Centres for Documentation (ABCD)
 Not just library automation, higher level of flexibility and diversity of
use. FOSS-project by the Flemish Interuniversity Council (VLIR)
with BIREME (WHO/Brazil)
 The project was led by Ernest Spinak and Egbert De Smet of the
University of Antwerp.
 The software entails, as a 'software suite' like e.g. Microsoft Office,
modules for database administration (definitions of storage and
indexing structures, data-entry, searching, import-export etc.),
loans administration, serials management, online end-user
searching (OPAC) and portal with integrated meta-search and
Content Management System/Institutional repository system.

7. Continued…
 First release 1.0 December 2009, This release of the
software is still being developed towards its final version
1.3 likely to be release in October 2013, and the new
release 2.0 with new functions like full-text indexing,
online document delivery services and Unicode,
meanwhile many libraries are experimenting with it or
using it, mostly in Latin America but also in e.g. EastAfrica (Ethiopia, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Mozambique).
 It name itself suggests this wide variety of usage, from
libraries using international standards (ABCD offers
MARC21 and CEPAL and others like DUBLIN CORE,
UNIMARC and AGRIS), to very much localized nonlibrary structures for managing even museum objects
catalogs or archive systems.

8. Technical features making ABCD
suitable for ETD Repository applications
Freedom of database structure : ABCD offers flexibility to create
full text database of ETD using existing MARC 21 format, CEPAL,
Dublin Core or users can create new databases from scratch using
ISIS Field Definition Tables and its powerful Formatting Language.
This is a rather unique feature of this software. Not many other
softwares provide such flexibility for database management. It
supports therefore all standards and non-standards.

9. Adding New ETD Repositories from the
Scratch
User can create and add as many databases (ETD or any type) on one
platform and manages them separately in the ABCD Central module but keep
them within one single searching environment (the 'meta-search') in the
ABCD-Site for end-users.

10. ETD Database from the existing
standard formats
The software allows users to use MARC-21 (or UNIMARC) cataloguing
formats, LILACS, AGRIS, CEPAL.
Other standards available are Dublin Core, METS, Z39.50, ISAD/G; from
version 2 – Unicode encoded databases are possible.

11. MARC 21 – ETD Database

12. CEPAL Format for ETD Database
CEPAL Database support to create an excellent ETD database with full text access.

13. Illustration

14. Full text Indexing capability
Since ABCD is based on PHP for the
web-interface creation, some nice
PHP-tools are embedded. E.g.
FckEditor is a PHP-library offering a
full HTML-editor which can be
embedded into a cataloging form to
create full documents. Text from
Word-documents can be 'copypasted' into a field of an ISIS-record
by using this tool. The field will be
presented as a web (HTML)
document but keeping the wordindexing technique for retrieval.
In new version 2.0 the file-upload
mechanism adds a 'text-extractor' (for
PDF 'pdftohtml.exe' is used, for other
formats the java-based 'tika' tool),
which takes the text-contents of any
document and this then is stored into
one or more ISIS-records

15. The use of non-latin scripts
ABCD, as a web-based software, can use (from v2.0) non-latin scripts (e.g.
Amharic, Chinese, Greek, Sanskrit,...) as part of the web-browser capabilities

16. Integrated end-user full text search
Alphabetical and by URL

17. OAI-Metadata Harvesting Protocol
ABCD offers a module which allows to access its databases through the OAIMetadata Harvesting Protocol, with the implementation of the 6 main verbs, as
illustrated below. Alternatively the URL's created by the interface can also be
used to be sent directly to the ABCD-server for incorporation of the results (as a
text-file with XML-tags) into other systems.

18. Dublin Core database with a search in iAH (the OPAC) with Unicode support

19. Sample Site

20. Demo
ABCD
Demo
Let's have a look at
how ABCD software
works for ETD
management

21. Conclusion
For creating ETD repositories and union catalogue of
ETDs the new 2.0 version of ABCD open source software
is being fully ready for all library communities free of cost
with all international standards inbuilt.
With less knowledge of programming library professionals
can build their digital repositories and give full or partial
access. This software allows accessing its databases
through the OAI-Metadata Harvesting Protocol too.

22. Thank you
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