[WEB4LIB] Questions: Sharing Library related Web Applications / Source?

[Lee Jaffe]

We've been running Web sites on Filemaker Pro and Lasso for 4-5 years,
(http://libweb.ucsc.edu/) and have been developing more recent services
using ZOPE and PostgresSQL (e.g., 
http://library.ucsc.edu/eresources/index.html).
There are quite a few tool sets available for these purposes.  I think it is
a mistake to start off assuming which tool set you'll use without investigating
beforehand.  We spent quite awhile comparing products, talking with developers,
reading reviews and then trial and error before settling on the Filemaker and
Lasso and went through an equally careful process before selecting ZOPE.

One piece of good news is that if you select good database products and design
your system well in the first place, you should be able to migrate to another
system when the time comes.  We've ported a few FMP-based services over
to a SQL-based services without too much trouble.  So I imagine that 
if you start
with MS-Access and later decide to move to another platform later, this should
work.  To some extent, your first project is more learning exercise 
than anything
else anyway and you can assume that you're going to do it much better 
the next time
(and assume that you will be doing it again eventually).

I've shared information and helped a couple of people who've asked 
and published
an article describing our development process in Library Computing 
19:1/2(2000).

-- Lee Jaffe, UC Santa Cruz

At 6:44 PM -0800 3/26/02, Peter Verhagen wrote:
>Considering the number of replies to the "Web Form and Access
>Database" thread, I have a few questions for some brave souls that
>decide to respond:
>
>Has any Library that has actually built such applications shared
>those applications with others? If so, what was that application? If
>not, on what grounds was that decision made not to share it?

-- 
==================================================================
Lee David Jaffe               Library Computing & Network Services
168B McHenry Library                                 ldjaffe at cats.ucsc.edu
University of California             831.459.3297  fax: 831.459.8206
Santa Cruz, California 95064       http://people.ucsc.edu/~ldjaffe