Re: IUG meeting proposed discussion

[Xudong Jin <xdjin@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At Ohio Wesleyan we are facing a similar situation. I would also be
interested in participating in a discussion on this.

Xudong Jin
Head of Technical Services
Ohio Wesleyan University
Delaware, OH 43015
740-368-3258
740-368-3222 (fax)
xdjin@xxxxxxxxxx

At 02:16 AM 4/6/00 -0500, Linda Bills wrote:
>I would be interested in meeting (perhaps as a Birds of a Feather) 
>with a small group of people to talk about how the catalogs we have 
>on III can be used as databases of URLS to be used in our webpages. 
>I would like to see if we can come up with definitive needs that 
>could be discussed with III as a suggestion for product development 
>that would have a market -- something that there is enough agreement 
>on that they would find it attractive to develope.  (I have already 
>presented my ideas on this subject to III, and I am interested to see 
>if there are other, better ways to do this, or other ways we can 
>leverage our existing III database.  Here is the basic theme I am 
>working with (stop here if you don't like essays).
>
>We catalog all of our paid web resources and many free resources on 
>our III database.  We also have links to these resources, in many 
>cases, from various more narrative webpages -- and given that we are 
>a consortium, there may be 3 or more links to the same resource. 
>Naturally it has occured to us how efficient it would be if we could 
>maintain the URL only in the III database and somehow pluck it from 
>III into our webpages as needed.
>
>Right now we accomplish this by having our webpage URLs go to our III 
>bib record, from which the user clicks the 856-produced link.  It's 
>good for upkeep but a bit confusing for the user.  We would also like 
>to be able to construct more tailored dynamic webpages (a la Cold 
>Fusion type stuff) using our III database of websites instead of 
>having to transfer info from there to another database for a 
>web-based application.  The basic model here is what CORC is doing 
>with their database + Pathfinders, but on a local level.  We have the 
>database, we maintain it on the III system for its value as part of 
>our catalog; we would like to leverage that if we can.
>
>We see several possibilities here -- that III could develop 
>something, or that we could use other products like Cold Fusion, or 
>CORC.  That we could transfer records around.... We do not have any 
>programming resources in our Consortium that could be easily 
>commandeered to do intensive local development.
>
>So, I would like to do a reality check with others who are working in 
>this area to see what's out there and how people are working with it.
>
>Please let me know if you are interested.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Linda
>Linda G. Bills           Tri-College Library Automation Coordinator
>lbills@xxxxxxxxxx      Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges
>(610) 526-5294           Canaday Library, Bryn Mawr College
>(610) 526-7480 fax       101 N. Merion Ave.
>                          Bryn Mawr, PA  19010
>
>