OCRE en français

This week I have dedicated time to making Numishare more flexible with respect to switching interface languages.  Numishare has been able to use a "lang" URL parameter in record pages to display labels for Nomisma-defined numismatic concepts in alternative languages  for quite some time (by matching the lang param with the xml:lang in the skos:prefLabel in Nomisma's RDF).  However, most labels in the HTML interface were hard-coded into the XSLT.  Labels are now resolved through an XSL function which replies with the correct textual strong based on the field name and "lang" parameter.  While the Solr facets are still in English, the application is well on its way toward greater fluidity in transition between languages.  The next version of OCRE, a branch in the new Numishare GitHub repository, will support French, and possibly Arabic, thanks to the work being done by the ANS's collaboration with the Egyptian National Library to deliver its collection of Islamic coinage.

This work would not be possible if not for Nomisma.  When Nomisma supports an increased array of labels in alternative languages, it will be possible to provide Numishare public interfaces to a wider international audience.

The next version of OCRE will be available this spring, and will likely feature more physical specimens and findspots.

edit: By the way, the test version of OCRE pulls data about physical coins and hoards from a Fuseki SPARQL endpoint, an advancement that deserves its own dedicated post soon. The above screenshots show a widget in action that reads SPARQL query results and renders them in OCRE record pages and search results.

Numishare has moved to GitHub

After nearly four years of development and 400 subversion commits on Google Code, Numishare has moved its code base to GitHub.  The migration has been a long time coming, as nearly every other ANS project (except EADitor, which, like Numishare, also began during my work at the Scholars' Lab of the University of Virginia Library).  The move to GitHub will allow Numishare to be maintained more effectively in the long run, as its branching and merging mechanisms are much easier.  At the time of these blog post, there are 7 or 8 Numishare projects: some already reflected with branches within the main Numishare trunk, some with their own repositories.  Moreover, Numishare has a much more effective ticketing system, making it easier for me to address bugs and feature requests.

The URL for the repository is https://github.com/ewg118/numishare.