Python

tool: PostgreSQL

Purpose: 

PostgreSQL is a powerful, open source object-relational database system.

Features: 

• fully ACID compliant
• full support for foreign keys, joins, views, triggers, and stored procedures (in multiple languages)
• includes most SQL 2008 data types, including INTEGER, NUMERIC, BOOLEAN, CHAR, VARCHAR, DATE, INTERVAL, and TIMESTAMP
• supports storage of binary large objects, including pictures, sounds, or video
• multi-Version Concurrency Control (MVCC)
• Highly customisable

A&H use case 1 description: 
The “Great Britain Historical Geographical Information System (GBHGIS)” has used PostgreSQL to store the geographically-located historical statistics for Great Britain.
Creator: 
Michael Stonebraker
Publisher: 
PostgreSQL Global Development Group
Suite: 
Software/programming languages used: 
Alternate tool(s): 

FileMaker, MySQL, SQLite, Firebird

lifecycleStage: 

tool: EATS

Purpose: 

The Entity Authority Tool Set (EATS) is a web application for recording, editing, using and displaying authority information about entities. It is designed to allow multiple authorities to each maintain their own independent data, while operating on a common base so that information about the same entity is all in one place.

EATS also comes with client tools for automatically looking up entities in a text by name and adding appropriate TEI markup.

Features: 

* A web API for importing and exporting entity data
* Robust searching with support for variant name forms
* Support for exporting entity data in a variety of formats

A&H use case 1 description: 
The Gascon Rolls Project uses EATS to record entity information and aid markup of the TEI XML as part of automatically creating indices of people and places.
Creator: 
Jamie Norrish
Publisher: 
Jamie Norrish
Communication and collaboration: 
Data publishing and dissemination: 
lifecycleStage: 
Data structuring and enhancement: 
Alternate tool(s): 

There are no direct alternatives, but Virtual International Authority File (http://viaf.org/) matches and links authority files across national libraries.

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tool: Plone

Purpose: 

Plone is a powerful, flexible, open source Content Management System (CMS) built on top of Zope application server and CMF.

Features: 

• Flexible and adaptable workflow
• Customisable
• Free add-ons
• Versioning, history and reverting content
• Support for multiple mark up formats
• Multilingual content management
• RSS feed support
• WebDAV and FTP support
• WYSIWYG

A&H use case 1 description: 
The “Concordia” project has used Plone to run the Pleiades website.
Creator: 
Alexander Limi, Alan Runyan, and Vidar Andersen
Publisher: 
Plone Foundation
Software/programming languages used: 
Alternate tool(s): 

Automne, Drupal, Joomla

lifecycleStage: 

tool: Solr

Purpose: 

Solr is an open source enterprise search platform from the Apache Lucene project. It operates as a standalone full-text search server within an appropriate servlet container, such as Tomcat. Solr uses the Lucene Java search library at its core for full-text indexing and search, and has REST-like HTTP/XML and JSON APIs that make it easy to use from virtually any programming language.

Features: 

• May be tailored to many types of application with minimal programming knowledge
• Extensive plug-in support
• Full-text indexing and search

A&H use case 1 description: 
The “British Cartoon Archive Digitisation (BCAD)” project has used Solr to deliver the search results and metadata.
Creator: 
CNET Networks
Publisher: 
Apache Software Foundation
Software/programming languages used: 
Suite: 
Data structuring and enhancement: 
Alternate tool(s): 

Sphynx

Licence: 
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tool: Lucene

Purpose: 

Apache Lucene is a high-performance, full-featured text search engine library written entirely in Java. It is a technology suitable for nearly any application that requires full-text search, especially cross-platform.

Features: 

• Scalable, high-performance indexing
• Powerful, accurate and efficient search algorithms
• Cross-platform solution

A&H use case 1 description: 
The “Freeze Frame – Historic Polar Images 1845-1960” project has used Lucene for advanced search of photographs from both Arctic and Antarctic expeditions.
Creator: 
Doug Cutting
Publisher: 
Apache Software Foundation
Software/programming languages used: 
Suite: 
Data structuring and enhancement: 
Alternate tool(s): 

InQuira, Verity, dtSearch, ISYS

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lifecycleStage: 
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tool: GeoNames

Purpose: 

A global geographical database that may be used to identify, tag and disambiguate all references to location. The database contains over 8 million entries, each of which possesses a geographic name (in various languages), latitude, longitude, elevation, population, administrative subdivision and postal codes and information on unique features.

Features: 

• Built upon web service, enabling transparent look-up and use of content through third-party tools and sites
• Browse by geographic location, country name, size of geographic region and other categories.
• Full text search support
• Extensible, enabling users to expand existing information or contribute new content
• Support for the World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS84) co-ordinate system

A&H use case 1 description: 
GeoNames is used in the Embedding GeoCrossWalk project to geotag locations found in proceedings of the Stormont Assembly.
Publisher: 
GeoNames.org
Creator: 
Marc Wick
Data publishing and dissemination: 
Communication and collaboration: 
lifecycleStage: 
Data structuring and enhancement: 
Strategy and project management: 
Alternate tool(s): 

Unlock

Practice-led research: 
Software/programming languages used: 
Purpose: 

An open source version control system that is used to manage multiple versions of data objects in a controlled environment. Access and revision to objects are carefully controlled, to prevent unauthorised access and alteration.

Features: 

• Version support for all files and directories in repository, enabling administrator to track changes that have occurred and obtain earlier versions of files
• Free-form versioned metadata
• Atomic commits
• Merge tracking
• File locking
• Preservation of file attributes, such as executable and read/write status
• Apache network server support with WebDAV/DeltaV protocol
• Write-through proxy using WebDAV
• Interactive conflict resolution
• Repository read-only mirroring

A&H use case 1 description: 
The Citation and Allusion project has used Subversion to document different versions of files as the work on the project proceeded.
Creator: 
CollabNet
Publisher: 
Apache Software Foundation
Strategy and project management: 
Software/programming languages used: 
Alternate tool(s): 

CVS

Licence: 
lifecycleStage: 

tool: ImageMagik

Purpose: 

A software suite for displaying, converting and editing still images stored in a raster image format. Image manipulation may be performed via the command line, API libraries, or through a simply graphical user interface.

Features: 

• Software control through API and command line
• Format conversion
• image transformation
• transparency support
• Format identification
• Text to image conversion

A&H use case 1 description: 
The Thomas Gray Archive has used Image Magik to edit pictures and maps.
Creator: 
ImageMagick Studio LLC
Publisher: 
ImageMagick Studio LLC
Practice-led research: 
Data structuring and enhancement: 
lifecycleStage: 
Alternate tool(s): 

GIMP, Adobe Photoshop

Licence: 
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tool: Gamera

Purpose: 

A toolkit for use in the creation of document recognition applications. It may be used by developers to create image processing and recognition tools that are tailored to the requirements of specific communities and subject domains.

Features: 
  • Custom dictionaries may be created to assist with analysis of specific record types
  • Extensible functionality
A&H use case 1 description: 
The Online Chopin Variorum Edition (OCVE) project has used Gamera to locate bar lines in printed music.
Specifications: 
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tool: BBEdit

Purpose: 

A text editor designed for use by software developers and web designers. BBEdit provides native support for several programming and scripting languages. Third party custom modules are available, created by users, to handle languages that are not supported in the native application.

Features: 
  • Multi-file text searching
  • Scripting
  • Syntax highlighting for ANSI C, C++, CSS, Fortran (through Fortran 95), HTML, Java, JavaScript, JSP, Object Pascal, Objective-C, Objective-C++, Perl, PHP, Python, Rez, Ruby, Setext, SQL, Tcl, Tex, UNIX shell scripts, XML and YAML
A&H use case 1 description: 
The Newton Manuscript Project used BBEdit to prepare 20 volumes of Newton's non-scientific papers for online delivery.
A&H use case 2 description: 
The Exhibitions of the Royal Photographic Society project used BBEdit when creating a research database of 45,000 records from the annual exhibition catalogues of the Photographic Society, London, published between 1870 and 1915.
Publisher: 
Bare Bones Software
Creator: 
Bare Bones Software
Licence: 
Platform: 
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