HyperLib Toolkit in public domain

[jcort at main.bib.uia.ac.be]

HyperLib Toolkit available in public domain

HyperLib - one of the EC-projects under the Specific Programme of Research 
and Technological Development in the field of Telematic Systems 
of General Interest (Area 5: Libraries) - is a collaborative project
between the University of Loughborough (UK) and the University of Antwerp
(B). The project started in 1993 and was completed in December 1995.

The project aimed to improve access to the library services 
of the University of Antwerp and thereby enhance the librarys utility 
to its users. The project adopted a human factors oriented design
methodology to ensure that the revised computer interface achieved 
the advances intended for as wide a spectrum of the librarys users 
as is possible. In order to achieve a system that is both effective 
and easy to use the project partners took the approach of graphical 
user interfaces supporting dynamic hypertext linking.

The project focused on two implementations: electronic user guides 
and database related resources (an academic bibliography, a navigation tool 
for subject classification and a webbed OPAC). The technology of the 
project is based on M database (ISO/IEC 11756), SGML (ISO 8879), WWW 
and HTML.

At the Closing Meeting of the project (December 1995), the project partners 
proposed as part of their exploitation plan to put parts of the HyperLib 
developments in public domain. At the beginning of 1996 work started on 
adapting software modules in order to achieve a higher degree of 
portability to other systems and platforms. As a result of these 
efforts, the HyperLib Toolkit is now available in public domain.

The current version of the HyperLib Toolkit allows the production of
hypertext books in HTML format from an SGML instance. These SGML instances
should be conform to the HyperLib DTD and can be produced with a
any SGML editor. The same SGML instance can also be used to generate 
PostScript files for hardcopy output. As this part of the software is 
currently under revision, the HyperLib Toolkit only handles the HTML 
output. 

Products that are related to the exploitation of database resources 
(Academic Bibliography, Subject Navigation Network and Webbed OPAC) 
are not part of the toolkit, mostly because these products are closely 
related to the specific technical and library environment at the University 
of Antwerp and thus cannot be ported easily to other operating environments. 

The HyperLib Toolkit can be installed on any platform capable of handling 
Perl-scripts. The installation procedure and the complete functionality 
of the toolkit is documented on the WWW (http://www.ua.ac.be/MAN/HLBSW).

In brief, The HyperLib Toolkit allows you to publish hypertext structured books
on the Web. In fact a HyperLib document is an SGML instance conforming to 
the HyperLib Document Type Definition (DTD) and it is built from a sequence 
of topics. A topic being the smallest addressable unit in the hypertext book, 
can contain structured text (headings, paragraphs, lists), embedded elements 
(foreground and background images) and hypertext references to other topics 
within the same manual, to other HyperLib manuals or guides, to other local 
or remote HTML documents on the Web or to Internet services in general 
(telnet, ftp, Gopher...). All topics are organised in a hierarchical network of 
parents and siblings. As a result all topics are defined with a
unique location in this hypertext network. 

The primary benefit of the toolkit is that it allows an organisation such as a 
library to fully document its services and thus provide a way to support it's 
distant users (both end users and librarians).  Because SGML was chosen as the
structuring language of the documents, all documents obtain the same look
and feel.  Finally the toolkit allows easy management of permanently updated
versions of (end) user documentation. 

General questions concerning the HyperLib project can be directed to
Julien Van Borm
University of Antwerp
UIA-Library
PB 13
B-2610 Antwerp
Tel: +32-3-820 21 41
Fax: +32-3-820 21 59
Email: jborm at lib.uia.ac.be

Technical questions concerning the HyperLib Toolkit can be directed to
Richard Philips
University of Antwerp
Library Automation Team
PB 13
B-2610 Antwerp
Tel: +32-3-820 21 57
Fax: +32-3-820 21 59
Email: rphilips at lib.ua.ac.be

More information on the HyperLib project is available from the
HyperLib Electronic Document Store at
http://www.ua.ac.be/docstore.html