Jon W. Dunn presented this overview of the Avalon Media System at the start of the "Avalon Media System: Implementation and Community" session at the 2014 Digital Library Federation (DLF) Forum on October 28, 2014. See session description and community notes: http://www.diglib.org/forums/2014forum/program/60z/

1. The Avalon Media System
Implementation and Community
DLF Forum – October 28, 2014
Jon Dunn
Indiana University
Julie Rudder
Northwestern University
Mike Durbin
University of Virginia
Bess Sadler
Stanford University
Stephen Davis
Columbia University

2. Avalon Project Objectives
Goal: Create an open source system to enable
libraries and archives to provide online access to
video and audio collections
• Digital audio/video management and delivery system, focused
on needs of libraries and archives
• Follow an agile, open source development model
• Leverage existing technologies, where feasible
• Communicate and market the project broadly to increase
awareness and grow the community of users and developers

3. Project Overview
• Funded in part by a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of
Museum and Library Services
• Original name: Variations on Video
• Planning grant:
– August 2010 – July 2011
• Implementation grant:
– October 2011 – September 2014 September 2015
• Partnership between libraries at Indiana University and
Northwestern University

4. Project Partners and Advisors

5. Release History
• 0.1 – July 2012
• 0.5 – October 2012
• 1.0 – May 2013
• 2.0 – October 2013
• 3.0 – May 2014
• 3.1 – July 2014
• 3.2 – Real Soon Now

6. Avalon Architecture
Avalon Media System
ILS
LMS,
websites
Authentic-ation
Archival
Storage
Hydrant Rails App
Desktop,
Mobile
All Users
Browser,
Drop box
Search
Browse
View
Ingest
Describe
Manage
Integrations
Collection
Managers
Authoriz-ation
Media Player
(Matterhorn Engage)
Omni-
Auth
Can-
Can
Ruby-horn
Hydra
Head
Black-light
 Avalon code – consists of Hydrant Rails App and the Rubyhorn
gem. Other pieces are leveraged.
Users
Fedora Solr Matterhorn Media Server

7. Demonstration

8. Faceted browse via Blacklight

9. Desktop/Mobile Player

10. Embedding

11. LTI (in Canvas)

12. LTI (in Canvas)

13. Manage Content

14. Add item: Upload, Dropbox, or Batch

15. Dropbox view

16. Batch Folder

17. Descriptive Metadata: MODS

18. Access Control

19. Permanent URL minted on Publish

20. Bulk actions

21. Current development process
• A single, blended team
• Agile Scrum process
• Code in public GitHub
• Face-to-face meetings
at least 2x/year
• Daily standups, IRC

22. Ariadne Rehbein
Project assistant
Brian Keese
developer
Leah Lee
developer
Development Team
Shelby Silvernell
testing and prod support
Jim Bottino
DevOps

23. Community and future directions
• Multiple implementations currently underway
• Working on new features, including:
– Structural metadata
– Transcripts and captioning
• Starting to deal with code contributions
• Working with Hydra community
– Leverage common features across “heads”
– HydraDAM and Avalon, other preservation-specific
integrations
• Sustainability/governance/business model
• Exploring hosted options

24. More on Avalon
• http://avalonmediasystem.org/
• Avalon e-mail list:
E-mail avalon-l-subscribe@indiana.edu to subscribe
@avalonmediasys
facebook.com/avalonmediasys