[WEB4LIB] Organizing Databases

[george at library.caltech.edu]

Rather than a drop-down menu, I'd suggest using a margin and top and bottom
A-Z zippers.  Offer the handful of subject groupings in a column on the left
side of a page, and A-Z alphabetical jumping off points at the top and
bottom of the pages.  Adjusting as necessary, if there are no databases
starting with X, gray out the link, or use alpha ranges (A-C, D-G, etc).

If a page is sufficiently compact (no scrolling), there's no need to bother
with the bottom A-Z.  Alternatively, including top and bottom zippers in a
template could make generating the pages from a database much simpler.

The A-Z static pages in our online journal database, with top and bottom A-Z
zippers, are generated automatically each night from a database.  Jim
O'Donnell's suite of geology web pages
<http://library.caltech.edu/collections/geology/> make good use of margin
navigation.

George S. Porter
Sherman Fairchild Library of Engineering & Applied Science
Caltech, 1-43
Pasadena, CA  91125-4300
Telephone (626) 395-3409 Fax (626) 431-2681