[Web4lib] AJAX on library websites?

[Maurice York]

We started playing with AJAX this fall for ReservesDirect, our ereserves
software. We've implemented it on the staff side of the system for lookups
of users and classes. The AJAX lookups have been a huge benefit in terms of
streamlining the interface and improving usability for staff. Looking up
courses, especially when you have a database that lists all courses taught
back to 1999, turns out to be more complicated than you might think at
first. By using AJAX, we cut down the number of mouse clicks by two and
three clicks and were able to get rid of a great deal of page-reloading that
was necessary to populate forms based on user selections. Now we can do live
searches and refine results on the fly.

For example: give me classes taught by Davidson, A for the Biology dept with
the name "bacteria" in the class title.

Of course, AJAX introduces some browser compatibility issues, so we're
confining it to the staff side for now until we can get a better handle on
how it behaves under intense use in production before we expose it to
instructors and staff. But for forms with multiple fields that refine
results based on user entries, you just can't beat AJAX.

Oh, and to solve the drop-down of results obscuring the submit button, we
solved that in a couple of ways: first, put the submit button out to the
side of the form fields, and second, put a max-height style on the box and
give it a scroll bar.

(For those interested in seeing this in action, the version of
ReservesDirect with AJAX lookups won't be released until the first week of
January, but when it's out you can take a look by going to our demo site (
http://reservesdirect.org/demo) and logging in as staff. It is implemented
on many of the "manage classes" and "manage users" tabs.)

-Maurice


--
************************************
Maurice York
Team Leader, Circulation and Reserves
Woodruff Library
Emory University
Atlanta, GA 30322
mcyork at emory.edu

On 12/19/05, David Walker <dwalker at csusm.edu> wrote:
>
> Hi Amy, et al.,
>
> I've been putting together an A9-style search for the Library here at
> San Marcos using AJAX as part of a project we call 'Xerxes'.  It's still
> in beta (and a little rough around the edges), but the book search is
> functioning alright:
>
> http://library.csusm.edu/search/books/
>
> We're using our catalog's (Innovative) XML server as well as the Melvyl
> (Aleph) XML server to bring back results, as well as some screen
> scrappers for our regional union catalog and Britannica.
>
> The plan will be to incorporate our article databases using the Metalib
> X-Server, which would appear as the 'journal and newspaper' column, or
> perhaps in certain cases using the XML gateways of individual databases
> where advantageous.
>
> --Dave
>
> =================
> David Walker
> Web Development Librarian
> Library
> Cal State San Marcos
> 760-750-4379
> =================
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
> [mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Amy M Ostrom
> Sent: Friday, December 16, 2005 7:00 PM
> To: web4lib at webjunction.org
> Subject: [Web4lib] AJAX on library websites?
>
> Dear Web4libbers:
>
> Sorry for multiple emails.  I am wondering if anyone else has been
> following AJAX (asynchronous javascript and xml) and is thinking about
> implementing it somehow into their library design?  The University of
> Wisconsin directory ( http://www.wisc.edu/directories/?name= ) is an
> example, and using it I thought this new combination of web tools could
> be a great benefit to libraries.  Any insight or examples would be
> wonderful!  Thank you.
>
> In peace,
>
> Amy M Ostrom
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