We are pleased to announce that the Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac OS/X and Source distributions of Greenstone v2.81 are now available for download from:

http://www.greenstone.org/download

The main focus has been on multilingual support. Improvements include handling filenames that include non-ASCII characters, accent folding switched on by default for Lucene, and character based segmentation for CJK languages.

This release also features our new installer, which is 100% open source. Previously we had relied on a commercial program for this, which incurred a significant cost in keeping up to date; consequently we decided to develop our own installer, based on the excellent open source installer toolkits already available.

There are many other significant additions in this release, such as the Fedora Librarian Interface (analogous to GLI, but working with a Fedora repository). See the release notes for the complete details. Specific issues fixed in the 2.81 release can be viewed in Greenstone Trac here and here.

This has been a long time coming, thank you for your patience.

As always, please report any problems or bugs to the mailing list.

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Thanks to:

John Rose, for help with English GLI help, French translations for GLI and Greenstone.
Maxime Rouast for Greenstone French translations
Celine Guimbertaud for GLI French translations
Yohannes Mulugeta and Abiyot Bayou for Greenstone Amharic translations
Kamal Salih for GLI Arabic translations
Gerhard Riesthuis for Greenstone Dutch translations
Mohan Raj Pradhan for GLI Nepali translations.
Diego Spano for translating the installer’s interface into Spanish.
Xiaofeng Yu for translating the installer’s interface into Mandarin.
Doris Jung for translating the installer’s interface into German.

There will be a 4-day Greenstone Workshop at the University of Malaya (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) on 12-15th May 2008. The workshop is hosted by the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology and the instructor will be Prof. M.G. Sreekumar - further details are in the workshop brochure (PDF).

Bess Sadler writes that photographs from a Greenstone Workshop in Bulawayo (Zimbabwe) in December 2007 are online.

International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management at Kathmandu, Nepal

HealthNet Nepal and Tribhuvan University, Central Library, Kathmandu, Nepal is organizing ICIKM-2008 from March 24-29, 2008 at Kathmandu, Nepal. The theme is “Information and Knowledge Management in a Connected World: A Challenge for the Developing Countries.” The conference will include a 3-day Greenstone workshop.

One of the major strength of the ICIKM-2008 is three days pre-conference workshop on Greenstone Digital Library, OJS (Open Journal System) and Open Conference System (OCS), and Integrated Library System–KOHA. The concerned developer of the software package i.e. Prof. Ian Witten, Mr. Alec Smecher and Mr. Chris Cormack runs these courses.

You are invited to attend and register to the Conference. We believe you and your colleagues will benefit tremendously from this conference. We encourage you and your colleagues to attend and share experiences with others in the conference.

Registration Information:
For details about the conference registration fee for all presenters and participants and other registration information, please refer to the conference website: www.icikm-2008.com.np

With regards,

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Mohan Raj Pradhan
Member-Secretary
ICIKM-2008
e-mail: mpradhan@healthnet.org.np

We are glad to announce that a three day Advanced Workshop on Greenstone Digital Library Software (GSDL) is organised at National Centre for Science Information (NCSI), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore from December 26th to 28th, covering Multilingual capability and Interoperability concepts in GSDL, for those who are familiar with basic concepts of GSDL. The workshop is supported by Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) under Technology Information and Facilitation Programme.

Workshop title: DSIR-NCSI Advanced Workshop on Greenstone Digital Library Software (GSDL)

Venue: NCSI, IISc, Bangalore

Date : December 26th to 28th

Prerequisite: Knowledge of basic features and Installation of GSDL.

Topics covered: Multilingual capability and Interoperability in GSDL

Workshop Fee: No registration fee is charged. Working lunch and tea will be provided during the workshop dates. However, participants have to take care of their travel, board and lodging. On request accommodation for participants during the dates 25th to 28th December 2007 will be provided at the ‘Hoysala House’ hostel of IISc. Maximum of 20 participants will be taken for the workshop based on the experience, in using GSDL. Workshop coordinator: Ms. Anuradha.K.T., NCSI, IISc, Bangalore 560 012

Registration: Send an email to anu@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in or anu_ncsi@yahoo.co.in giving the following details:
1. Name:
2. Official Address and email
3. Experience in using GSDL.
———————————————————————
Ms.K.T.Anuradha E-mail: anu@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in
Senior Technical Officer URL:vidya-mapak.ncsi.iisc.ernet.in
National Centre for Science Information
Indian Institute of Science
Karnataka, Bangalore 560 012
India
FAX:(+91-80) 23601426/23600683
Tel:(+91-80) 23600271/22932511