Early this month the INDI project team made the INDI Sandbox available so that archivists and others interested in the distributed workflow system could kick the tires and get a feel for how the Integrated Digital Special Collections works. Late last week team members completed the INDI Walkthrough that will guide first time users through the various features available in INDI. This document is available at http://www.lib.byu.edu/indi/indi-walkthrough/ and is meant to be used in conjunction with the INDI Sandbox. It features step by step instructions on how to use INDI Desktop, MyProjects, and MyContacts, as well as detailed instructions for creating appraisal and accession projects. We hope that the walkthrough will make using the INDI Sandbox an easier experience.

In other INDI news, the project team is wrapping up the documentation for INDI Phase I, and once the final bug is fixed and the source code has been appropriately packaged INDI Phase I will be made available to the archival community. Phase I is comprised of INDI Desktop, MyProjects and MyContacts as well as the Apprasial module and the Acquisition and Accession module. Please watch the Downloads page for links to the source code for these items.

With the completion of Phase I the project team is turning its attention to Phase II. Phase II will focus on the creation of the Arrangement and Description module of INDI. This module will gather descriptive data about archival collections and then make that data available for export in a variety of output formats (EAD, EAC, MARCXML, MODS, Dublin Core, etc.). The project team is currently creating the requirements statements that will serve as the basis for programming this module of INDI. The team is also comparing the various standards that will be available for output and working to create a comprehensive data model. This data model is seen as the key to enabling INDI to output the specified formats as well as INDI’s future extensibility.

The last several months have been pretty hectic for the INDI Development team. Our lead programmer, Jason Read, took another position and left the Harold B. Lee Library in early October. Curtis Thacker was hired as our new programmer shortly before Jason Read left and spent about two weeks working with Jason in an effort to gain a better understanding of the underlying architecture of the INDI system. To help jump start the learning process for Curtis, the INDI team developed a new module for him to build. The new module deals with the processes inherent in the appraisal of archival material. The change in programmers has wreaked havoc on our development schedule and we will be updating it shortly. We plan to release the INDI core tools (MyProjects, MyContacts, INDI Desktop, Administrative Interface) as well as the Accession and Appraisal Modules in early 2008. Another project that Curtis is working on is the development of an INDI sandbox that will be publicly available for interested individuals to examine INDI first hand. We hope to release the sandbox soon. The INDI project team is also working to update the INDI screencast to include information about the Appraisal module.