CollectiveAccess Pawtucket README

Thanks for downloading CollectiveAccess Pawtucket version 1.4!

Pawtucket is general purpose public-access publishing tool for CollectiveAccess. It provides an easy way to create web sites around data entered into CollectiveAccess using the Providence cataloguing tool. Pawtucket provides many features for displaying, finding and interacting with collections information, including:

1. Full text search with auto-suggestion functionality
2. Configurable faceted browse
3. Ability to browse within search results (aka. "refine your search")
4. Configurable detail displays for collection objects and all authorities- you can show as much or as little information from your database as you want
5. Support for "features" - simple online exhibitions using curator-defined sets. System is extensible so you can define your own feature-types.
6. Support for user-created tags, comments, ratings and object slideshows
7. Not object-centric. While objects are usually the focus of a collections front-end, with Pawtucket they don't have to be. You can search and browse in any authority in addition to collection objects. This lets Pawtucket work in specialized applications such as biographical catalogues (people are the focus rather than objects) and collection-level archival finding aids (collections are the focus rather than objects)

Pawtucket is meant to be customized. The download version includes a basic default theme that supports all functionality. By editing the CSS stylesheet and system header and footer templates you can have Pawtucket fit into most any existing design scheme.

How to Install

You can find installation instructions for Pawtucket at http://docs.collectiveaccess.org/wiki/Installing_Pawtucket Release notes are available at http://docs.collectiveaccess.org/wiki/Release_Notes_for_Pawtucket_1.4

If you are updating an existing installation see http://docs.collectiveaccess.org/wiki/Upgrading_Pawtucket