Welcome to the February issue of the Fedora Newsletter. In addition to the usual update on the latest developments within our community, we’ve included links to some further reading for your interest.

News

Farewell to Andrew Woods - Tech Lead

It is with a sad heart that this month we say goodbye to Andrew Woods, one of the long-standing Tech Leads here at Fedora. Having served over ten years as a guiding light of the Fedora community, his invaluable contributions to the development of the software and involvement with the community are deeply appreciated. His leadership and technical expertise will be sorely missed, even as we continue to enjoy the good results of past labors. We wish him all the best in his new endeavor and hope he will not be a stranger to the community!

Danny Bernstein will continue to serve as Tech Lead while Mike Ritter, who has contributed to Fedora and other open digital preservation development efforts, will be filling the gap in development capacity left by Andrew’s departure. Mike has worked with many members of the community in the past and we are happy to welcome him and his expertise to the team.

Fedora 6 Beta Release

Since the start of the new year the team has been hard at work completing outstanding tickets and solidifying criteria for a successful Beta Release. Our goal for the  two week sprint (beginning February 8, 2021) is to finish the development, documentation and testing required for the Beta release. We plan to cut the release the week after the sprint.

At this time, the development team is seeking feedback on post-Beta Production performance criteria to help guide the focus for final release. We are asking for input into the following document from as many institutions as possible. This document is being used to informally capture performance and scale related expectations for the next major release of Fedora: 6.0.

Please mark your calendars for participation in a Beta-testing period coming soon!

Fedora User Group Meetings

We are pleased to announce the return of the Fedora User Group Meetings! With the success of last year’s virtual meetings, we are hosting them online again this year. Our goal is to provide a greater opportunity for presenters and attendees to participate and engage over the course of the meetings. Please stay tuned for more details.

SAVE THE DATES:

Week of March 15th, 2021 - Fedora User Group Meeting offered in European Time Zones

Week of April 12th, 2021 - Fedora User Group Meeting offered in North American Time Zones

Please note, this event is free to attend and you are encouraged to attend either session regardless of time zone.

IMLS Grant Update: Fedora Migration Paths and Tools

This grant (lg-246264-ols-20) is focused on developing, piloting, and documenting migration tools and paths for upgrading Fedora 3 repositories to Fedora 6. Fedora staff and the grant partners have been working hard on this project and are pleased to share the following updates:

  1. The University of Virginia pilot team has completed an initial migration of their Fedora 3 content using migration-utils. The next step is to index this content in their new Fedora 6 instance for further testing and configuration.
  2. The LYRASIS team is working on a validation tool that will independently validate a Fedora 3 to 6 migration. This tool will be used to validate that the University of Virginia migration has been completed successfully and all data has been migrated without loss.
  3. The Whitman College team is setting up a new Islandora 8 instance using ISLE and a new theme being developed by Born Digital. Once this instance has been set up the team will begin sample migrations based on previously established mapping decisions.


Stay tuned for future updates!

Communications 

Demo Videos:

Last month we released a demo video on YouTube featuring Peter Winckles from the University of Wisconsin, Madison showcasing rocfl, which is a utility that makes it easier to examine OCFL objects within Fedora or any repository that contains OCFL objects. Check out the video here: https://youtu.be/wuTCNWLJqNU

You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel to follow along with our monthly demo videos.

Blog:

David Wilcox takes you through the most recent update on IMLS Grant progress here.

Activities in Related Communities - January

Islandora

  • An Open Meeting was held on January 28, 2021
    • Check out this video showcasing Noah Smith’s theme, developed by BornDigital for Islandora 8.
    • The next Open Meeting will be held on Tuesday, February 23, 2021.

Samvera

  • Hyku 3.0 was released
    • Full release notes can be found here.
  • HyKu released a demo video on DOI Minting which can be found on the Samvera Hyku YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/t_Ejy-p7sVU

Coming Up Next…

Stay tuned this month for the following:

  • Monthly IMLS Grant Update Blog Post - follow along with David Wilcox as he brings you up to speed on the team’s progress.
  • Monthly Demo Video - what feature will we showcase next? What features would you like to see? 

Conferences & Events

In an effort to consolidate conference information for all community members, we have created an active Conferences section on the wiki which can be accessed at any time here. Our goal is to keep this as up-to-date as possible to provide a single source of information surrounding on-going conferences and workshops.

Upcoming Conferences

Research Data Access and Preservation Association (RDAP) Summit - March 10-12, 2021 (virtual)

  • The RDAP Summit is a 3-day, single-track event for all who work toward management, access and preservation of research data.
  • Event registration is now open and all event information can be found here.


Code4lib 2021 - March 22-26, 2021 (virtual)

  • Code4lib is a loosely structured conference that provides people working at the intersection of libraries/archives/museums/cultural heritage and technology with a chance to share ideas, be inspired and forge collaborations.
  • Event registration is now open and all event information can be found here.
  • FEDORA @ code4lib: David Wilcox and Paige Morfitt from Whitman College will be presenting “Mapping Metadata: Cleaning and controlling fields to improve migrations.”

Membership

Fedora is funded entirely through the contributions of members that allocate their annual funding to Fedora. This funding supports full-time staff to work on Fedora and provide technical leadership, direct strategic planning, organize community outreach, and coordinate timely software releases. Membership also provides opportunities to participate in project governance and influence the direction of the software. If your institution is not yet a member in support of Fedora, please join us today!

Register Your Repository

Is your repository listed in the registry? Help us maintain reliable information on the community of Fedora users around the world by registering your repository today. You can also request an update to an existing entry by selecting your entry and filling out the online form. 

Get Involved

Fedora is designed, built, used, and supported by the community. An easy and important way that you can contribute to the effort is by helping resolve outstanding bugs. If you have an interest in gaining a better understanding of the Fedora code base, or a specific interest in any of these bugs, please add a comment to a ticket and we can work together to move your interest forward.

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