AustLit

What I've done

• Added "book first" and "URL first" as new sort options, which involved some significant refactoring of the search and display logic as these sort orders could not be generated efficiently using a single SQL query, requiring 2 passes over the data for the first time.

• Facility to allow efficient linking of scanned text images to works About 1,600 images (out of about 17,000) were linked as a proof-of-concept.

• Investigation and resolution of problems running the maintenance suite under IE6. Judith Pearce referred me to an article describing some "unexpected" changes in CSS rendering in IE6 due to new processing engines within the browser which use the HTML document's DOCTYPE to perform more or less standards-compliant rendering. But I couldn't see the link between background colour issues and unexplained Javascript errors...

  ... after a session with the IE JScript debugger things became clearer if not transparent. The behaviour infered by the debugger was that this fragment of HTML:

  <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JScript" src='/common/common.js' /> <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JScript"> var updateSeq='42' ; </SCRIPT>

  was being interpreted in a strange way, as if written like this:

  <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JScript" src='/common/common.js'> <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JScript"> var updateSeq='42' ; </SCRIPT> </SCRIPT>

  which isn't valid in any sense (nested SCRIPT elements!). It turned out that the empty element ending shortcut ( the "/>") is nolonger allowed on a SCRIPT element in IE6, probably due to the DTD in force which (correctly) doesn't stipulate that the SCRIPT element be empty (although it clearly can be, and often is!).

  The XML spec alludes to possible problems in this area:

  Empty-element tags may be used for any element which has no content, whether or not it is declared using the keyword EMPTY. For interoperability, the empty-element tag should be used, and should only be used, for elements which are declared EMPTY.

  although SAX or DOM based processing applications wouldn't distinguish between:

  <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JScript" src='/common/common.js' /> and <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JScript" src='/common/common.js'></SCRIPT> because they encode the same information.

  Anyway, with those changes made throughout the maintenance suite, it seems to work fine under IE6.

• Misc minor changes to stylesheets (to show links to full text in summary and review/criticism work displays, correct rendering of agent work award notes) and Pandora suggestion submission form.

• New password protected AustLit Partner web site established (but still empty).

• Discussion and planning for the next group of development tasks.

• The system was stable.

  There were some network connectivity problems at ADFA which probably prevented access to the AustLit server for some time on Friday morning but were resolved at 8:30 AM.

Next Week

• Function to support mass extract of records/scope into XML formatted file.

• Design/implement "public view" processing.

• Although the initially planned work on sorting options has been completed, some new issues have been raised regarding new sort options (by work/form/genre, by subjective ranking, ??) and formatting (brief or full display on resort) and decoupling resorting from the other processing options.

• Planning sessions with Kerry, Annette, Marie-Louise week starting the 18th Feburary.

• Multiple creation events for a work as a mechanism for allowing date ranges to be associated with agents responsible for works, eg editors of a periodical.

• Refining NBD Holdings searches.

• Expand thesaurus maintenance review functions

• Restructure awards to include year as an award attribute and move awards to be event-based rather than work-based.

• Review all subset definitions for efficacy.

• Import/export in MARC and DC formats.

• SDI facility.

• Combining searches

• System Documentation

Links of the week

• Rock 'em, sock 'em Robocode! - Sing Li

  Learning Java programming is more fun than ever with this advanced robot battle simulation engine

  A cross between a Nintendo game and "Java 101" - a great link to pass to a budding programmer.

• Second Generation Web Services - Paul Prescod

  Examines the architecture that led to the success of the World Wide Web and constrasts it with the approach taken by the current first-generation web services such as SOAP and UDDI.