Qubit, ICA-AtoM or DCB?

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Main Page > Qubit, ICA-AtoM or DCB?


Qubit, ICA-AtoM and DCB are closely related projects and the distinction can be confusing at first. The main differences between them are (1) Qubit Toolkit is for software developers, (2) ICA-AtoM is for archives, (3) DCB is for libraries and museums.


1. The Qubit Toolkit is a web application that allows developers to create software distributions for specific user communities, such as ICA-AtoM for the international archival community, the Digital Collection Builder for Canadian cultural heritage institutions, or Archivematica for institutions implementing digital preservation systems.

  • note that the Qubit Toolkit itself can also be used as a generic information management application.
  • day-to-day development work takes place on Qubit. This work is being coordinated by Artefactual Systems


2. ICA-AtoM is an web application for managing and providing access to archival descriptions compliant with ICA and other archival standards (e.g. RAD).


3. Digital Collection Builder (DCB) is an web application for managing and providing access to digital collections created in a library or museum settings using Dublin Core or MODS as the default descriptive standard.

  • DCB is a software distribution built from the Qubit Toolkit.
  • DCB is managed by the Canadiana.org, an organization devoted to digitizing, preserving and providing access to Canadian online content.
  • DCB is managed as a stable branch in the Qubit code repository. When new features or bug fixes are added to Qubit they are merged as a batch to DCB as part of a scheduled release cycle.
  • Both Qubit and Digital Collection Builder (DCB) are open-source software released under the same GPL v2 license.
  • See also: Main Page > About


Contents

So which one should I install?

The decision of whether to install Qubit, ICA-AtoM or DCB depends on how you are planning to use application, but as a guideline:

If you are a software developer

You will probably want to install Qubit from our Subversion repository. This is always the most up-to-date version of code so you will get access to new features and bug fixes sooner. However, Because this is the current development branch of the Qubit code, it also less stable than our ICA-AtoM releases and may have undiscovered bugs.

Because the Subversion Repository is the only option for Qubit, you also get the benefits of Revision Control software for managing changes to the code.

If you are an Archival Institution

You will probably want to install ICA-AtoM from the latest tarball or from our Subversion repository. ICA-AtoM is updated in "versioned releases" (e.g. version 1.0.8) which are more stable than the Qubit development branch, but you will have to wait for the next release to get new features and bug fixes.

If you decide that you want to install ICA-AtoM you also have to decide whether you want to install from a tarball or the Subversion repository.

  • A tarball is a file in the .tar archive format. It is probably easier to understand for users not familiar with Revision Control software, but makes upgrading to a newer version of the software more difficult.
  • Installing from the Subversion repository may be more difficult to understand at first, but makes updating the software easier.

If you are a Library or Museum

You will probably want to install DCB from the latest tarball or from our Subversion repository. DCB is updated in "versioned releases" (e.g. version 1.0.8) which are more stable than the Qubit development branch, but you will have to wait for the next release to get new features and bug fixes.

If you decide that you want to install DCB you also have to decide whether you want to install from a tarball or the Subversion repository.

  • A tarball is a file in the .tar archive format. It is probably easier to understand for users not familiar with Revision Control software, but makes upgrading to a newer version of the software more difficult.
  • Installing from the Subversion repository may be more difficult to understand at first, but makes updating the software easier.
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