29 November 2007
New Zealand's music information centre - SOUNZ - is one of dozens of national centres worldwide promoting the work of their composers. Central to SOUNZ's activities is extensive information about New Zealand composers supported by the world's largest accessible collection of scores, recordings and other materials..
Based on FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records), the SOUNZ catalogue is one of the first in the world to give full expression to the conceptual model developed by the International Federation of Library Associations.
The catalogue now sits at the centre of an extensive business system developed by Catalyst to help SOUNZ promote New Zealand music and support the work of our composers and musicians. The most visible aspect of the system is the new SOUNZ website, which provides visitors with multi-faceted views of New Zealand music. Behind the scenes the new system helps SOUNZ staff maintain the catalogue, manage loans from the Centre's library, sales of recordings and scores through the website, and stay in contact with composers, musicians, and anyone interested in the world of New Zealand music.
The entire system was developed using the Ruby on Rails framework. Rails allowed the Catalyst team to rapidly develop and adapt the system to meet the needs of SOUNZ staff as they started using components of the evolving system in their day to day work.
The project, supported by Community Partnership Fund of the National Digital Strategy, is a showcase both for Catalyst's technical skills and the way we work with our clients to deliver truly effective open source solutions to meet their real business needs.