[WEB4LIB] re: capturing web pages for offline use

[Bailey, Katrina]

So far, I haven't found a better way to do dynamically-generated-page demos
(such as from a database) than a screen capture/powerpoint presentation.
Teleport didn't work well at all for those (although it is great for static
web pages). Someone recommended "Catch The Web", but I haven't evaluated it
yet.

The downsides of screen captures/powerpoint? Huge files, requires very
methodical composition (if you want to scroll down a page and back up,
that's at least 3 captures), no obvious interactivity (can't type in your
searches). Upside - it's easy to do.

I guess the problem is "web page" doesn't just mean "static html residing in
one place on a server" anymore. Most our students wouldn't give a talking
frog for a demo about web sites and web pages. They want to know which
databases we have, how to use them, how to print, how to email, how to find
the full-text... and it's hard to download a page that doesn't exist (I have
to give this speech to our students who try to print EBSCO pages without
going through their print set up - .asp pages don't save).

If someone has better ideas about this, I'm all ears...:-)

Katrina Bailey
Serials/Online Services Librarian
University of Mary Hardin-Baylor
kbailey at umhb.edu <mailto:kbailey at umhb.edu> 
254-295-5011

	-----Original Message-----
	From:	kuntzmaj at york.uchsc.edu [SMTP:kuntzmaj at york.uchsc.edu]
	Sent:	Monday, May 22, 2000 2:24 PM
	To:	Multiple recipients of list
	Subject:	[WEB4LIB] re: capturing web pages for offline use

	Stacey Pober wrote:

	>I want to save web pages so we can use them for demos to classes
when 
	>our network is down.  I was looking in the Web4lib archives and the
	>threads dealing with this were at least two years old - some of the
	>software recommended is no longer available. 

	<snip>

	I've used teleport pro to good effect, but these days I
	just recommend folks use the latest version of Internet Explorer.
	Even if you know your live connection is reliable, having to demo 
	a busy web site during the lunch hour is a time when it 
	often pays to have an offline copy to speed your presentation.

	The "work offline" feature of IE has improved steadily over
	the years, and now allows you to archive several levels deep
	in addition to scheduling regular downloads if you wish.
	In IE 5 when you go to "Favorites", it should offer the
	"make available offline" option. If it isn't there for some
	reason, I'd recommend upgrading your IE.
	 
	One caveat: I just tried it with a sample record from our OPAC
	and it did a fine job. However, I sent it to archive
	our current library web and noticed it had trouble
	in going out to vendor sites--it was getting robots.txt files,
	which indicates IE was classified by those sites in this instance
	as a robot, which meant it was denied access.

	Offline web browsers can put a heavier load on busy sites,
	so it's probably best to schedule an archive session for later 
	on at night. They're not perfect either, they will have trouble with

	javascript or anything coming out of a database. Though as I said, 
	IE did fine in capturing a sample record from our webpac.

	(And does doing this violate copyright; probably so. Anyone
	care to comment?)
	Jeff Kuntzman/Internet Librarian
	Univ. Colorado Health Sciences Center

	PS: Roger Trobridge (web4lib member?) has a website 
	that talks a little about offline web browsing with good general
info: 
	http://internet-gopher.com/toolkit/download.htm