Goobi is an open-source software

Open-source software

Open-source software is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.Open...

 for the control of workflows in digitisation projects. It is used by a number of archives, libraries, museums, publishers, and scanning utilities. The software is used for mass digitisation of documents. Developed licence-free by the Göttingen University, the medium-term aim is to found a development community that will guarantee the ongoing development and maintenance of the product.

Structure

The software is used to organise digitisation workflows. The software package for this purpose is the central part of it and has following properties:

• Central management of the digital copies (images)
• Central metadata
  Metadata
  The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
  
   management
  Data management
  Data management comprises all the disciplines related to managing data as a valuable resource.- Overview :The official definition provided by DAMA International, the professional organization for those in the data management profession, is: "Data Resource Management is the development and execution...
  
  : it is possible to cataloguing and integration of metadata from various locations
• Controlling mechanisms: they are used to control the progress of work of the partners
• Export and import interfaces for metadata and third-party digital copies
• Management tasks: managing error messages, completion of work work steps and to convey to the next step, including the change of partners
• Platform-independence: Goobi is a Web application
  Web application
  A web application is an application that is accessed over a network such as the Internet or an intranet. The term may also mean a computer software application that is coded in a browser-supported language and reliant on a common web browser to render the application executable.Web applications are...
  
   and has to be designed in this way, as partners in digitisation of a customer are often distributed all over the World.

Components for the distributed workflow management are integrated into the product to ensure the management of a distrubuted communication and production among various partners. The user can select for each workflow step whether it is accomplished parallel to the previous one or in sequence, after the previous has been finished successfully. Besides, correction loops are mapped in order to record data that turned out to be erroneous later.

The application is designed transparent so that it is possible for each partner to see the status of each partial step of a workflow and the assigned staff for each writing in detail.

Packages

The software comprises of several packages, like Goobi.COLLABORATE, Goobi.VISUAL, Goobi.PRINT, or Goobi.PRODUCER. They are serving different purposes, like usage or production.

Spread

Goobi is used by various libraries. Since 2008, the State Library of Berlin started to think about using Goobi. It uses since 2010 Goobi for its workflows and documents. Also Zeuschel is augmenting his offer of software solutions and adds a central component for efficient conduct digitisation projects. GOOBI ZED enables users to control and manage the workflow of mass digitisation projects with a uniform software. This begins with the hardware connection and goes over the capture of bibliographic meta data up to presentation and provision of the digital materials in the World Wide Web.