Greenstone

Lots of library collections are now moving online, and that is partly owed to the pandemic. There's also the convenience brought about by digitalization, which makes it easier to access and operate such information, so digital libraries can be considered a boon of the 21st century.

Designed with this scope in mind, Greenstone provides a very comprehensive solution to handling digital library collections: whether it's to be published on the internet or stored on a USB drive, managing and arranging libraries is now easier than ever.

The way this program is structured is quite ingenious. Upon starting it, a command prompt will pop up, its role being to boot up the server. In doing so, a browser window will open, allowing you to access the contents of your library.

Navigating through your libraries is a pleasant experience: we used the Demo collection, and sorting through the available titles and subjects was quite intuitive. The books in your library are alphabetically grouped, and there's also a Subject tab that sorts the items by their fields, as well as an Organizations section, arranging the contents based on the contributing institutions on a title. A search function is also available.

When reading a certain book, you'll notice that the chapters are nicely delineated in the table of contents, and accessing any of them is easily done.

Adding documents can be done through the Librarian Interface, in which you can introduce new entries and modify their metadata.

As you expand your digital library — and are working with multiple collections — getting to a specific title may be a bit cumbersome. Luckily, the Cross collection search capability of this program makes it easier for you to reach what you want.

The Administration Page is necessary to configure: adding new users and grouping them based on their prerogatives will make everything more efficient. In that panel, you can designate editors, either for all collections or only for specific ones.

Greenstone is a versatile, full-fledged program that allows you to arrange, manage, and distribute digital library collections efficiently.