The Open Video Digital Library Toolkit (OVDLT) project is intended to make it easier for organizations and individuals with moving image collections to organize those collections into web-based digital video libraries. Funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and now released as open source software under the MIT License, the OVDLT project provides a no cost solution for libraries, archives, museums, and others who want to make available their digital video resources through their own web-based digital library.
Features of the OVDLT software include:
- Rich end-user features: favorites, user-generated playlists, playlist annotations, tagging, saved searches
- Easy library administration: site-integrated form-based library configuration, user management, easily configurable metadata schema
- Quick, intuitive cataloging: integrated forms, easy control over public/private videos and featured videos, one-click posterframe selection
- Video preview generation: storyboards, fastforwards, and excerpts
OVDLT runs on Linux or Mac OS X using the Ruby on Rails framework with MySQL as the database management system.
This project is an extension of the Open Video Project, one of the first substantial collections of publicly accessible available on the World Wide Web, which I (along with my doctoral studies advisor, Gary Marchionini) established at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1999. I was the primary investigator on the OVDLT grant and continue to lead its development as an open source project.
