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Software Solutions : from Millennium Create List to Custom New-Titles Web Lists

The best new-titles pages are so well-designed that they implicitly showcase the library's collection-development context. Users can pick-and-choose by time-frame and academic area and link directly to any title that interests them: Subject areas and time-frames can be selected from intuitive at-a-glance menus, and each title has its own unique seach link. But how do we harness the power of Millennium's custom data analysis when "obvious" solutions such as re-indexing the library's database and Perl scripts are out of a library's reach?

Integrated business software is our powerful production ally! Come see an example of using Millennium Silver's Create List's "export" function, MS Excel, MS Access, writing simple code for automatically generated title-unique web links, designing a custom web template, and exporting the Access reports into web pages through those custom templates. How exactly is it done? This demo shows you how, step by step.

    + for your convenience: webpage with complete slides -- choose from PowerPoint and pdf.

Six tasks from Millennium Export to customized new-titles page:

1. Millennium Create Lists

   • Create a list based on the appropriate search parameters.

   • To sift out any titles you do not wish to appear, create another review file with the unwanted material types excluded from the search parameters.

2. Export the Created List

   • Export the final review file as a .txt file. Use | as field delimiters, ' or " as text delimiters, ; as repeat delimiters. Export fields +245, +author, +imprint, +location, +call number, +fund code, and +your notes field(s) pertaining fund-code or gift-fund / donor information. This information will be needed later for MS Access data queries.

3. Minor data editing, made easy with cheat-sheet containing recurring edits.

4. Excel manipulation and creating unique web links

   • Go into Excel and open up the text file, using the delimiters chosen in the text-file export.

   • Next will some minor cleanups of information in the note fields other than fund and gift/donor information. Output content will depend on the information you put into your note (n and z) fields in the order records.

   • Next, create the search links needed for the unique hotlinks to each title. This is done by concatenating the spreadsheet's data cells that feed into the search statements' components.

5. Access programming

   • Next, create an Access database and copy the spreadsheet with the search links into a table.

   • Create data queries based on the fund codes.

   • Design a report for each fund code. Each report pulls from the query for the same fund code. Design the report with the end product in mind: the layout and color scheme on the intended website.

   • If you export the report now without a special web template, it will be a canned look. To get a customized color scheme and design, you'll need a web template.

6. html template and webpage output

   • Design a web template based on the look you want and the information to include on each report. For example, give it a title to correspond with "new titles" and the appropriate timeframe covered in your web list. You'll also need to add the time frame in the page body.

   • Tip: Each subsequent report export defaults to the last web template you've used. While ultra-customization for each fund code is a nice touch, changing the template for each data pass-through can be very time-consuming. Instead, create one master template.

   • You can create a blank web page with a WYSIWYG editor and save the code as a text file. That text file becomes your html template that the Access report passes through on its way to becoming a webpage.

   • Export the report. When prompted to input an html template for report output, click "Browse" and select the template you've just created.

   • If possible, export the Access reports directly to your web server as webpages. Otherwise, save them to your hard drive and then copy them to the server.  You're done!

7. A word about site navigation

   • Now that you have a beautiful set of customized web list after all your programming and data manipulation, how will users see the ones they want?

   • The lists by area are only as accessible as the website navigation.

   • If you have not already done so, now is the time to create a navigational structure.

   • Design points to keep in mind:

     • Easy-to-navigate, intuitive linked choices

     • Design the navigation so that users

       • can see where they are in the site and

       • can see all other site options just one click away.

   • My example at has

     • a pulldown menu to the right of the top banner, plus

     • another way to get to the same pulldown menu in the main frame of the page. Why? As an alternative for lower-resolution web display where the top right pulldown menu isn't visible.

For script, go to the NIST site and download the Expect Script. While still learning the script, the above home-grown steps will provide custom lists in the meantime.

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Page last updated on Thursday May 29, 2008 04:27 PM .