Monthly Highlight: GeoBlacklight version 4.0

By Karen Majewicz

During the September GeoBlacklight (GBL) Community Sprint, we released GeoBlacklight version 4.0 . This version provides full support for the OpenGeoMetadata ‘Aardvark’ metadata schema and represents concerted efforts from many in the GBL community - Read more about the release here.

Over the past few years, the BTAA-GIN has provided the primary leadership and momentum for the GBL community. We can attribute this to at least two aspects of the BTAA-GIN’s structure and goals:

We have two Operations Team employees designated to work on the Geoportal as their sole or primary activity: an on-staff Product Manager @ 1.0 FTE and an independent Application Developer, who works a focused weeklong sprint every month. This allocation differs from institutions with staff responsible for a myriad of applications.

We value collaboration and open documentation, which allows us to focus on contributions to the broader geospatial library community. This emphasis is distinct from many individual academic institutions that are mandated to focus exclusively on their own application ecosystem.