[WEB4LIB] RE: Web based reserve item request form design

[Araby Greene]

We have a simple Reserve Request form that allows faculty to request up to
10 items (per form) for a particular course. Upon submission of the
validated form, a confirmation page lists items requested and formats an
HTML/text e-mail to Circulation staff (since not everybody uses HTML mail
all the time). The HTML mail lines everything up nicely in a borderless
table. For this type of thing, I use a favorite ASP "formmail" script
(available free from brainjar.com) that can be modified to suit.

I've cloned the form, so it won't be e-mailed to our circ folks if you play
with it:
http://www.library.unr.edu/comments/reserves1.html

Araby Greene

________________________
Araby Greene
araby at unr.edu
Web Development Librarian
Getchell Library/322
Univ. of Nevada, Reno
http://www.library.unr.edu/


> -----Original Message-----
> From: web4lib at webjunction.org
> [mailto:web4lib at webjunction.org]On Behalf Of Stacy Pober
> Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2001 1:42 PM
> To: Multipl
> e recipients of list
> Subject: [WEB4LIB] Web based reserve item request form design
>
>
> I would like to create an online reserve form for the
> faculty to use to request that materials be put on reserve.
> Being the sort of person who doesn't want to re-invent the
> wheel, I was thinking that some folks here might already
> have forms online for this at their institutions that might
> give me some good design ideas.
>
> Our current system for paper reserves is a simple form where
> the teacher lists all the xer
> oxes and books they wish to put
> on reserve and they specify the number of copies and length
> of time that each item can go out.  We just started using
> the Docutek EReserve system which will let us digitize many
> of the xeroxed reserve items as well, but the faculty isn't
> used to this idea yet.
>
> I would ideally like one form to do it all:  list paper
> copies, videos, and books with the requested circulation
> specs they request, plus a place where they must specify
> whether or not we can digitize t
> he stuff and whether they
> have a scanned or fax-ed in copy of something that is
> already in a digital format that they'd like mounted on the
> ERes system.
>
> There could be some copyright info they could click past to
> submit the form as well (as in "Here are some guidelines
> on copyright and 'fair use'")
>
> PLUS, I would really like it if the form after submission
> came to our circulation staff in a form that THEY could
> print out to use instead of their current reserve sheets.
> The current reserve sh
> eet system is a problem because many
> faculty haven't been listing important elements like the
> exact course number or the date they want the material on
> and off reserve, so the current reserve book has a lot more
> stuff than is really used. I could use a form-checking
> javascript to insure an online form had some of the
> essential elements filled-in.
>
> Right now, we have an online form that generates an email
> to the circ department when someone wants to request a book
> that is in storage.  However,
> the email that is generated is
> relatively skeletal in format (field name, entry,linebreak)
> It's fine for its purpose, but since a reserve form would
> generate more complex information, I'd prefer to have it
> come in to the circ desk mail as an html mail they can
> print out and use as a reference sheet if at all possible.
>
> Can anyone point me to some similar online forms and/or
> how-to info?  Even if the form isn't for the exact same
> purpose, if there's a form you use for some other purpose
> that au
> tomatically produces a nice HTML mail or even a
> clearly formatted text document as the result, I'd like
> to see it.
>
> --
> Stacy Pober
> Information Alchemist
> Manhattan College Libraries
> http://www.manhattan.edu
> spober at manhattan.ed