Farewell to Arcadia - an end or a beginning?

My final post on the Arcadia Project blog, as the Exam Paper Browser project has now come to an end. It was a challenging project - creating a test case for the potential to provide staff and students with personalised resources and services, and linking together 3 different University IT services with Google's gadget technology. But after just 10 weeks, we now have a working prototype of the system up and running. Of course, this prototype Exam Paper Browser can be developed by the University to provide a central bank of online exam papers, but it also offers a starting point to develop a whole range of tools displaying information from DSpace in easy to use formats directly to any web page. It should be comparatively easy, for example, to develop a tool that will automatically display PhDs submitted by Department members on a Department web page.

So, lets hope that this is a beginning, rather than an end, and that this will be the start of a whole range of gadgets pulling material out of DSpace to be displayed in helpful ways across the University.

I'm now back in CARET, and will be sharing my new-found knowledge about gadget design with my colleagues here, before taking up a new post at the Botanic Gardens.

Finally, a big thank you to all those at the University Library and beyond who were so consistently helpful and welcoming - special thanks go to Huw, Lizz, Ed, Ray, Elin, Barbara, Simon, Sebastiaan and the wonderful people on my support team!