ALEG

What I've done

• Implemented simple object identifiers (which will be used for storing ISBN, NLA immutable numbers, AUSTLIT unique identifiers etc) not as topics but as 'light-weight' attributes.

• Worked with Fran installing the following software components on the Library's Solaris box: Apache 1.3.12, Tomcat 3.1, Java2 SDK 1.3, Samba 2.0.7. Everything went smoothly except the installation of the Tomcat's mod_jserv to Apache (which allows the Apache web server to communicate with the Tomcat Java servlet environment), due to a bug in the Tomcat installtion notes (now resolved). We are awaiting Oracle 8.1.6 from the UNSW software distribution service (expected Monday).

• Loaded the work extract from AUSTLIT (just 26 works). This forced me to think more about implementing a 'pure' INDECS style event structure, or something simplier, probably faster but less flexible. I've opted for the 'pure' approach, but if it doesn't perform sufficiently well, I'll wimp out by replacing it with something more pragmatic.

• Fran produced complete extracts from AUSTLIT of authors, titles, topics and sources. I've loaded over 10,000 of the 36,609 authors (actually, there will be more agents than 36,609 loaded into AUSTLIT due to pseudonyms, and many more names due to variant names. The rest will be loaded Monday.

  This load has been going smoothly except for @#!!$ dates - came across a "BC" date, which the date model doesn't currently handle (fix next week).

  Fran will be producing a complete extract of the works, and I'll load them next week too.

• Document how ALEG will handle some tricky cases - The "Poets of the Month" works from the mid 1970's and "Down the Lake with Half a Chook". These are amongst the most "difficult" cases Tessa and Kathy can come up with, so if we think the proposed data model can handle these, we'll be happy!

• Install Oracle 8.1.6 under Solaris, move the NT database and Oracle environment to Solaris.

• Load all the AUSTLIT data and hopefully at least some parts of the BAL/LAW data. Processing the AUSTLIT sources looks like it will be a bit tricky, as they weren't identified as regular titles in AUSTLIT, so I'll need to create some matching code to link the source titles to ALEG manifestations.

  Fran will also be producing a file of the reviews, so we'll have to see how best to process them.

• It will be good to get the development finally running on Solaris!