[WEB4LIB] Newspaper Indexing

[TMGB]

You may want to look at Zope, a dynamic object publishing server (
http://www.zope.org/ ) .  Zope can be used as a standalone server or a
"plugin" to apache or netscape servers.  If you can output the date you
already have to a generic file like comma delimited then you can use
Zope with MySQl and load your already existing data into the database
server.  Zope runs on Windows, Linux, and I think someone even got it to
run on Mac.  You can use MySQL, Postgresql, Sybase, Oracle , and I think
there are a couple of other databases it supports, even Access through
ODBC.  If I am correct, searching the database is limited to features of
the database program (don't quote me).  You can set the number of
results per page, after creating it, and the next and previous links are
automatically set in the html when you tell the server to create the
results page, if needed for each search.


Thomas

===========================================

Below is an example of a simple case-sensitive search of a field of a 
MySQL database.  The page dynamically created from the report shows
regular html to the browser not the dtml shown below.

First the form page
Second the SQL
Third the report page - The second line in results page is where you can
set the number of results per page

The form to get the input to search.
===========================
<!--#var standard_html_header-->
<form action="find_info_report" method="get">
<h2><!--#var document_title--></h2>
<H3><B>Search the Broyhill Papers Index.  
<br>This page lets you search for topics and returns to you a list of
all matches specifying which box and folder the item can be found.  This
is a case sensitive search which means that a search on 'tobacco' will
give you zero results and a search on 'Tobacco' will give you 25 results
at the time this page was created.  Although, 'Tobac' will return
results of anything beginning with 'Tobac+any_other_letters'.  So a
search on 'To' will return information on Tobacco as well as Tourism.
<br>  
</H3>
<table>
<tr>
   <th>Search for: </th>
   <td>
      <input name="search_term" width=30 value="">
      <input type="SUBMIT" name="SUBMIT" value="Search">
   </td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>
<!--#var standard_html_footer-->



The SQL
====================================
select *
from bhillidx
where info REGEXP '<dtml-var search_term>'



The results page
====================================
<!--#var standard_html_header-->
<!--#in find_in_info size=25 start=query_start-->
   <!--#if sequence-start-->
      <!--#if previous-sequence-->
        <a href="<!--#var URL-->
           <!--#var sequence-query-->query_start=<!--#var
previous-sequence-start-number-->">
        (Previous <!--#var previous-sequence-size--> results)
        </a>
      <!--#/if previous-sequence-->
      <table border="0">
        <b>The Results from your search for <dtml-var search_term></b>
   <!--#/if sequence-start-->
        <tr>
          <td valign="top"><B>Box</B>    <!--#var box null=""--></td>
          <td valign="top"><B>Folder</B> <!--#var folder null=""--></td>
          <td valign="top"><B> * * </B></td>
          <td valign="top"><!--#var info null=""--></td>
        </tr>
   <!--#if sequence-end-->
      </table>
      <!--#if next-sequence-->
         <a href="<!--#var URL--><!--#var sequence-query
            -->query_start=<!--#var
            next-sequence-start-number-->">
         (Next <!--#var next-sequence-size--> results)
         </a>
      <!--#/if next-sequence-->
   <!--#/if sequence-end-->
<!--#else-->
  There was no data matching this <!--#var title_or_id--> query.
<!--#/in-->
<!--#var standard_html_footer-->





Robin Dombrow wrote:
> 
> I know this was discussed last fall (I checked the archives), but does
> anyone have anything further to add about indexing newspapers or other local
> history databases and loading to web?
>   We are starting a project and our city computer people said yesterday that
> we could not use Access to index material (it wasn't good enough) and they
> said there is nothing they know of which will do the job we want to load a
> searchable index to the web.
>   We have an obit index covering about 20 years of the local papers and want
> to do a retrospective index as well. Also have a local history file which
> has notations from census, cemetery, wills, deeds, voter's registrations,
> etc.  What we want is to make a database of these files, load them on our
> webpage and take the old drawers out of the area.
>    I have forwarded your comments from last fall to my asst. director, but
> wanted to know if there are any additions, corrections, cautions. I know it
> can be done. Some of you are doing it.
> 
> I appreciate the help,
> 
> Robin
> 
> Robin D. Dombrowsky
> Adult Services Librarian
> Leesburg Public Library
> 204 N. 5th St.
> Leesburg, FL 34748
> (352)728-9790
> rdombrow at ci.leesburg.fl.us

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                      Rock and Rule
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Thomas McMillan Grant Bennett      Appalachian State University
Computer Consultant II             University Library
bennettt at am.appstate.edu          
http://www.library.appstate.edu/webmaster/
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