Peter starts his presentation on the current Libaray Content Management System, with a look back at the early days when we built the first LCMS based on Minisys. He showed some screenshots from the Internet Archive from our Library Website.
The next step is the defence, why did we built our own library cintent management system. The reason is mainly, that it offers us flexibility at the moment, and in the near future. Library systems from vendors always need a lot of adapting new applications are needed all the time, new functionalities are always on our wish list. Building our own content management systems allows us do to exactly that.
The core of our LCMS is the inhouse developed language WebQuery, which overlays an Oracle database. The output in the form of XML schema’s is translated with XSLT stylesheets in HTML pages. For the updated routines of the Oracle database our programmers also developed a xForms like language.
Peter gives some examples of URL manipulation that shows the different functionalities of the library system. Even some journals are archived in this way on our system. Similarly, this approach is being followed for the subject pages of library resources and the news database for library news. The systems is very flexible: eg, we can integrate the library holdings in the SFX windows or the document ordering requests. In the library book ordering systems, our service orietned architecture integrates elements from the book supplier or fill out as much as possible based on an ISBN with information from Amazon.
The pro’s are numerous. Flexibility and avoiding vendor lock-in. The disadvantge of course is the quite large share of IT staff you need to attract for these ambitious projects and to keep the staff interested in their works.
0 Responses to “The Wageningen Library Content Management System”