[Web4lib] loading database descriptions into web page

[Sharon Foster]

I'd be interested in the responses, too. I'd like to do something
similar, but probably on a much smaller scale. I have about 2 dozen
hard-coded HTML pages that I put together for my final project in
Digital Libraries. Right now I'm thinking I'd like to replace them
with an XML file that I would search and browse on the fly with Perl
scripts, but I realize that there's almost always more than one way to
do something like that, and they don't always scale up.


On 7/30/07, Sandra Cahillane <scahilla at baypath.edu> wrote:
>
> Hello again,
>
> Thank you all for your support.  I really don't know how I've gotten along
> without you.
>
> Here is my latest dilemma.  I have someone capable of writing me a script
> that would load database descriptions into a web page for me similar to
> what they have at UMass Amherst
> (http://www.library.umass.edu/cgi-bin/aka/databases.cgi?command=viewdesc&id=5e413c58e05b0c653b4c01b7f85cb881).
>   That is, you click on an info button on my alpha list of databases and a
> separate page with a description of one specific database is populated.
> The problem is, I have no idea how to create the link that would pull the
> info from the database description pages, I'm assuming that part would be
> fairly simple though.  Nor do I know how to format the description page so
> it would work with the script.  The person I am working with said to create
> a "dynamic" HTML page, but I'm not sure what that means.  These days, I
> though they were all dynamic.
>
> Do I need to create individual pages for each database description?  Or is
> their a way to create a page with all the database descriptions and have
> the appropriate data pulled depending on which database you wanted info on?
>
> Does anyone have pages/examples/sites they can share with me that I could
> work from?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Sandy
>
> Sandy Cahillane
> Systems and Reference Librarian
> Bay Path College
> Hatch Library
> 588 Longmeadow Street
> Longmeadow, MA  01106
> (413) 567-4529 or (413) 565-1376
> fax-(413) 567-8345
>
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>


-- 
Sharon M. Foster, B.S., J.D., 0.5 * (MLS)
F/OSS Evangelist
Cheshire Public Library
104 Main Street
Cheshire, CT  06410
http://www.cheshirelibrary.org
My library school portfolio: http://home.southernct.edu/~fosters4/
My final project for ILS655, Digital Libraries:
http://www.vsa-software.com/ils655

Any opinions expressed here are entirely my own.