Municipal archive goes OpenSource
The City Council of Schwäbisch Hall ist one of the pioneers in applying Open Source Software in public administration.
With the IT-changeover in 2002, OpenOffice.org (Version 1.03!) substituted proprietary software. Meanwhile, OpenOffice.org 3.x is off-the-shelf on each workplace.
Because of not using complex macros or the like, the change turned out to be unproblematic.
Drafts have been completely regenerated and, simultaneously, revised. Applications, which continuate the proprietary Office Package´s databases, are an exeption. These are used for administration addresses in the domain of touristic but also in the domain of archive stock for making data accessible.
In future, the City Council will restructure the address management generally. So, making archival data accessible has been preferred.
The Municipal Archive of Schwäbisch Hall manages centrally the city´s urban history, i.e. deals with historical research. It is the <memory> of administration and also the centre of documentation. It stores official documents and files of today´s City Council and its predecessors and also
collections of any kind and origin belonging to the city´s history, i.e. photographies, bills, graphics, paintings, maps, plans or press-clippings. Besides, there is an extensive library stock including a great deal of literature referring to the historical history of the city and regional characteristics as well as valuable historical prints.
Its functions are the arrangement, exploitation, analysis and appropriation of its archive stock and collection, the support and encouragement of historical research, the collaboration in planning and realizing exhibitions and delivery of publications referring to the history of the city of Schwäbisch Hall - may it be self-authored or composed by other writers.
Until now, the archive´s staff has used, amongst other things, a proprietary database. Because of the importance of using different criteria for different objects in an archival exploitation context, different entry masks are essential. The staff has developped and optimized these masks autonomously. These masks are modified according to the particular type of object, if necessary. Out of the recording of data, the Archive evaluates its stock with regard to the required question and compiles, for example, extracts for publications. This database also allows spontanious query of data about different objects. Some querys recur and are, therefore, saved. The Archive also interconnects different collections.
The work which is invested into the exploitation of archive stock should not depend on an specific software. The problem is, that the database of the current Office version is not consistend with the supported state of its software producer. In case of a change to a current version, data might be lost, i.e. not available as usual. The staff has at least to make supplementations and adaptions for masks or reports subsequently.
Another problem of the current solution is that the work of the staff can be influenced by a change in the software producer policy. There is insofar a risk (rererring to a proprietary software), that one can possibly dispossess the public of the knowledge, which is saved in self-compiled tables, querys and reports (licence!).
As a result of that, the IT department of the city searched together with the Municipal Archive for a solution: On the one hand it should permit maximal flexibility of archival work and on the other hand, it should be open, so that the invested knowhow might not be at risk under no circumstances.
So, the participants of the project called it a fact that only Open Source software is most suitable for a prosepective <application>.
It was obvious for the responsible persons that only a combination of database and Office component would satisfy claims. Coeval, a centralized data authority should balance the disadvantage of the data preservation on the hitherto existing <application> on the file server.
The city of Schwäbisch Hall has made good experiences with the IngresDB until now. Ingres developped under direction of Mike Stonebreaker of the University of California, Berkely, in the 1970s. The source code of Ingres was available with a BSD-like licence. It is therefore the first Open Source database. It is also used in the City Council Information System (conference management) of Schwäbisch Hall. Because of the fact that the IT-staff show appropriate knowledge, the participants of the project decided to initiate IngresDB.
There were several options for the frontend. The City Council went for OpenOffice.org due to the work routine of all archival employees. So, familiar tools like a web form editor, a query assistant and report assistant are at the archival staff´s command.
However, OpenOffice did not include a connection to IngresDB. The administration of the city of Schwäbisch Hall has therefore authorized IngresETC in Illmenau to develop a driver for OpenOffice.org, which should, functioning as extension, be generally available with GPL.
Concurrently with the development of this driver, the IT-staff have permuted all masks with underlying querys out of the proprietary applications in OpenOffice.org-Base. All data has been completely migrated in Ingres DB by the IT-staff.
Alongside the update to version 9.3. of IngresDB, the archival staff will be trained and the extension productively set.
With supporting free projects, the administration of the city of Schwäbisch Hall accounts for public administrations using OpenSource as independent and competitive alternative for professional software.