Greenstone Support
Want to learn a bit more about Greenstone? Having trouble installing or building collections? There are many sources of help for you to turn to.
Greenstone Documentation Wiki
Your one-stop shop for all documentation about Greenstone (including the following).
FAQ
The FAQ contains a list of common questions to do with Greenstone, including how to get the software, installation and running of Greenstone, and collection building.
Greenstone Documentation
There are several manuals and guides that come with Greenstone. This page provides links to them all, many of them in multiple languages.
Greenstone Mailing-List Archive
There is a Greenstone collection containing all the questions and responses posted to the two Greenstone mailing lists. Searching this collection is a good way to find answers to common questions that haven't made it into the FAQ list yet. It is updated regularly but may not contain the latest postings. This is accessible by anyone.
Alternatively, there are private archives of the individual lists (greenstone-users archives and greenstone-devel archives), which are only accessible by list members. These are updated daily.
How To Build a Digital Library
What is a digital library? What does it look like? Where does the information come from? How do you put it together? Where to start? This is a book that answers these questions in a plain and straightforward manner, with a strong practical "how to" flavour. The book also describes the Greenstone software.
Mailing Lists
Follow the link above to see information about our mailing lists.
Web-based Support Form
As a last resort, if you are unable to use the mailing lists for some reason, use this web based support form to send a query to the Greenstone support team.
Commercial Support
Commercial support for Greenstone is available from DL Consulting, who provide services including Greenstone customisation, hosting and ongoing maintenance. For more information email DL Consulting sales.
Opalle Innovation offers professional advice, technical support, internationalization, hosting, and custom solutions for Greenstone users.
Prodigio Consultores offer professional services for Greenstone in Latin America. They are major contributors to Greenstone support in Spanish.
Training
A variety of organizations have run Greenstone training courses in the past, not all of which we have been involved in:
UNESCO has sponsored training courses in Bangalore (2002 and 2003), Almaty (2003), Suva (2003, with USP), Senegal (2004)
Contact Jean-Claude Dauphin jc.dauphin@unesco.org
UNESCO IITE (Institute of Information Technology in Education) are planning courses in Cairo, Bangkok, Moscow
Contact Azat Khannanov Azat.Khannanov@iite.ru
University of Pune, India by Shubhada Nagarkar shubha@bioinfo.ernet.in
IIM Kozhikode by M.G. Sreekumar mgsree@iimk.ac.in
Infomed Cuba by Gustavo Kouri gkouric@infomed.sld.cu
SLAIS, University of British Columbia by Edie Rasmussen edie@interchange.ubc.ca
FAO and SPC Fiji by Christina Tuitubou ChristinaT@spc.int
Digital Library conferences sometimes have Greenstone tutorials
JCDL, ECDL, ICADL, ICDL
Librarian conferences sometimes have Greenstone workshops and presentations
LITA, ALA Annual Conference, ASIST
Alternatively, if your department/organization is willing to organise and fund a Greenstone workshop in your area, we might be able to run it (depending on what other commitments we have). We would require our air travel and basic accomodation to be paid for, and if you're feeling generous, a donation towards our research costs would be appreciated.
Self-study courses
FAO/UNESCO have developed a self-paced module entitled "Digitization and Digital Libraries" available at: http://www.imarkgroup.org/ or contact: IMARKenquiries@fao.org
IITE have a self-study course "Digital libraries in education"
Contact Azat Khannanov Azat.Khannanov@iite.ru
Donations and Contract Research
Greenstone is distributed free under the GNU General Public License, and will continue to be. We provide support by responding to queries on the email lists, and will continue to do this to the best of our ability - but we cannot guarantee this service, particularly with increasing traffic. For those with funds, there are further opportunities.
Become a Friend of Greenstone... and we will prioritize response to your queries on the email lists, and provide up to one day per year of a project member's time to look at your particular problems. The cost is US$2000 per annum (by donation or invoice); to join, email us. As a token of our appreciation you will receive a small sliver of New Zealand Greenstone as a keepsake.
Want a new feature? The Greenstone research group undertakes contract research to enhance Greenstone by adding new facilities and features. Here are some examples of what we'd like to do - if we had financial support. Contact greenstone@cs.waikato.ac.nz.