using frames

[Melissa Silvestre]

>Sheryl wrote:
>>I'm wondering if anyone can suggest
>>some library sites that are using frames successfully or creatively. I'd
>>also appreciate anyone's comments on the feedback they've received from
>>their users in regards to frames.

We've just started using a frames-based interface to our library catalog.
It's too soon to have any feedback, though. We haven't had any complaints,
but since we also have several stations using the standard telnet-based
interface, we don't know if people are switching from one to the other.

While I've certainly seen a lot of gratuitous use of frames, I'd
like to defend our use in this particular context. 

The screen has three frames. The far left column has the list of types of
new searches (author, title, subject) that can be clicked on at any time.
This solves that awful and familiar public catalog station problem where
the new user walks up to the screen left by another patron in the middle
of a search, and is confused about how to start their own search.
The top thin frame lists which of our five campuses the catalog is
currently scoped to, and allows you to change it. Then the main box
is where you do your searching, navigate around the search results, etc.
That main box is III's regular unframed web interface. The rest of
the framed structure is something we built around it.
At the moment the whole thing is IP-checked, so I can't just give you
the URL to see it for yourself. Hopefully in the future we'll open it
to the general Internet public. Those of you who have dealt with III
will understand immediately; for the rest I have one phrase to explain this:
"per user license fees".


Melissa Silvestre
silvest at umslvma.umsl.edu     http://www.umsl.edu/~silvest/
Reference Librarian, University of Missouri-St. Louis
(314) 516-6473