RePEc::Index Perl kit
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It can be useful if you happen to write programs that use academic
metadata, collected by the RePEc project, http://repec.org

RePEc::Index module is a very simple interface to a database of
metadata about RePEc data.  RePEc data is a large set of data files in
a text format called ReDIF.  One file may contain one or many ReDIF
records, so called templates.  Each record has a unique (ideally)
identifier.  The RePEc::Index database has information about the data
files, the records and their identifiers.

The RePEc::Index database is built and updated with an update script
called ri_update.pl.  It should be executed regularly to ensure that
the database reflects the ever-changing RePEc data.

RePEc-Index can store its data in Berkeley DB database, so it needs
you to have Berkeley DB libraries installed on your machine.  Most
Unix installations have that.  If you are on windows, you'll need some
effort.  Email the author if you need help.



INSTALLATION
~~~~~~~~~~~~

RePEc::Index requires these perl modules and kits installed:

  Carp::Assert
  Storable
  BerkeleyDB
  ReDIF::Parser (from ReDIF-perl kit)
  Events

The ReDIF-perl kit and the Events module should be available
from:

http://netec.mcc.ac.uk/ReDIF-perl/ 

Other modules are widely known CPAN modules. If you don't have them,
look at http://search.cpan.org

The installation procedure requires some care.  RePEc::Index is a
database module.  This means it will create and keep a database for
you.  To do its job, it needs a place in your filesystem to store its
files.  

That place is assumed to stay the same while you use the module, but
you may move it to a different location if you need.  You just need a
bit of care.


> Installation: RePEc-Index home

The directory RePEc-Index will use for its files is called RePEc-Index
home directory.  When you unpack the distribution and run usual "perl
Makefile.PL", it will ask you about RePEc-Index home and it will store
the path you give in lib/RePEc/Index/local_setup.pm.  That file will
stay together with RePEc::Index modules, until you overwrite it by
running "perl Makefile.PL" again or by hand.

You should ensure the module has enough free disk space to store its
database files in home directory.  Also RePEc-Index will look for
configuration files (see below) and will write its log file in its
home dir.

After running "perl Makefile.PL", do the usual "make" and "make 
install" steps.  For "make install" you might need root privileges.


> Configuring RePEc-Index

After installing the module, before you start using it, you must
configure it to adapt it to your environment.  RePEc-Index is about
tracking metadata collections and you need to configure those
collections.  Copy collections.example file into RePEc-Index home
directory, rename it to "collections" and edit it to reflect your
setting.

Optionally, you may also install "configuration.pl" in the same place.
But now it only had one option to tune: the log verbosity level.


> Preparing to use

After the above, the only thing you need is to fill the RePEc-Index
database with real data.  Use ri_update.pl script for this.  Running
it on a big metadata collection can be very long-running operation,
especially when you do it first time. 



DOCUMENTATION
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There is some POD documentation in the modules and there is DEVLOG
file, which contains many details.


AUTHOR
~~~~~~
Please report problems, critique and suggestions to Ivan Kurmanov, 
kurmanov@openlib.org.
