Building a Bib Database

[R124C41 at aol.com]

Regarding the subject, here are a number of possible solutions...(this is
somewhat peripheral to the web4lib topic but if you got this far after seeing
the subject you presumably already were interested--if not hit the delete key
now.)

Non-proprietary ones:
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if you don't have any money but do have access to a unix box, then I would
recommend a combination of the web and wais.

See:

http://www-chep95.fnal.gov/abstracts/abs_153.html

Another alternative (which for 45K bib records might be needed in order to
keep the speed up) would be mSQL, a freeware SQL package.

This has already been discussed on this list and a reference given by Alan
Jackson (alan_j at supvax.sls.co.uk).  See:

The msql list:

msql-list-request at bunyip.com 

Or take a look at the FAQ at:

ftp://bond.edu.au/pub/Minerva/msql/faq.html

I suspect that both of those would work pretty well in a CD-ROM
implementation.  For example, we are going to cut a CD-ROM for the CHEP95
proceedings, which will be multi-platform (PC, MAC, and three or four flavors
of Unix) and we will provide the info in HTML, gif and so on.

Proprietary solutions.
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Now, if you have money or have a PC orientation, I would probably look at
something like MicroSoft Access (but I know nothing about it but the
reputation).  

If I had to do it on a Mac, I would look at FileMakerPro and consider the new
relational version.  Alternatively, for both the PC and the Mac, FoxPro is
claimed to be pretty good (though I have less experience).

If you have lots of money or you need an industrial strength database because
of security concerns or auditability, then there is always Oracle or SyBase.

But all of these will be fairly platform specific and hard to distribute
because of licensing issues, I think.  And I am not sure how easy they would
be to put on CDROM...FilemakerPro and Access probably but the others--well,
why would you even try...?

By the way, it occurs to me in closing that 600 Mb/(45k records) = 13kb so
you still have quite a bit of space per record--unless you have to put it up
in three or four different flavors.  Space-wise, it should be ok..

--David Ritchie
--R124C41 at AOL.COM