ICA-AtoM beta 1.0 release at the ICA Congress

[peterVG]

I have just returned home to Vancouver, Canada after a hectic and
exciting week at the ICA Congress in Kuala Lumpur where we officially
launched the 1.0 beta version of the ICA-AtoM software. The response
at the Congress was overwhelmingly positive. We had great attendance
at our launch presentation, user workshops, administrator workshop and
steering committee meeting. We distributed over 1300 copies of the
beta 1.0 Demo CD and I was asked to give a briefing on the project on
Saturday night to the ICA Executive Board.

I was also interviewed about the project by the ICA Flying Reporters
who did an excellent job covering all the happenings of the ICA
Congress. You can read the interview here:
http://www.kualalumpur2008.ica.org/en/reporters/news/inside-scoop-ica-atom-access-memory

We now have over 30 archival institutions worldwide signed up to join
the formal round of beta testing which will take place between October
2008 and March 2009. We also have volunteers to translate the
application into another five languages. We are in discussion to test
deployment with several institutions and it appears likely that we
have sponsors for some focused development work on the application
core which will help to move it forward from an early beta version to
a stable production-ready release.

If you weren't able to attend the ICA Congress you can download and
burn your own copy of the Demo CD or simply log-in and try out the
online demo version of ICA-AtoM at http://ica-atom.org/demo/. Of
course, if you have your own web server or web hosting account you can
download and install your own copy of ICA-AtoM (http://ica-atom.org/
download.html).

Please keep in mind, however, that this is an early 1.0 beta version.
It is undergoing active development and testing. We'd love to get your
feedback on this user discussion list to report any bugs and to help
us improve the software to meet your requirements.

Peter Van Garderen
Software Release Manager
ICA-AtoM Project