DocDB is a powerful and flexible collaborative document server. It was originally developed for use by the BTeV collaboration at Fermilab and is now used by twenty or more other experiments, Fermilab divisions, organizations, national laboratories, and companies (a partial list). DocDB is well suited for managing and sharing documents (not just official publications) among groups of up to several hundred people.

A DocDB installation consists of three parts: 1) a relational database which stores information about the documents, 2) a file system hierarchy used for storing the documents themselves, and 3) a suite of CGI scripts which provide coherent access to both sets of information.

• DocDB maintains a versioned list of documents in a MySQL database.
  Information maintained in the database includes, author(s), title, topic(s),
  events(s), creation on modification dates, revision number, abstract,
  keywords, document type, pointers to the actual document files, and access
  restriction information.


• Access to DocDB is controlled by cgi scripts that run on your web
  server.


• When a document is submitted to DocDB, the document is copied (from
  either local disk or an html address) to a directory located on the web
  server. Documents may be composed of many files.


• Documents are copied to a central location so that they will not
  "disappear" when someone rearranges or deletes files. This also enables
  centralized backup.


• Changes to a document result in a new version of the document. Old
  versions remain available, providing historical archiving. Different versions
  allow different access restrictions, so documents can be developed in private
  and then released.


• DocDB contains a robust event and agenda management system which allows
  documents to be associated with meetings of all sizes.