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The
text below is an extract of the BIBIS technical manual. As the person
responsible for the ICT policy within your company, you are an important partner
to us in your choice for BIBIS and in effecting the BIBIS-installation and
implementation within your company or organization.
BIBIS
concept
BIBIS
is an inter/intranet based library software package. BIBIS can either be
installed under a Web Server under Windows or under UNIX or one of its variants
like Solaris and HP-UX.
Why
choose for inter-/intranet based library software?
The answer is quite simple. Library
information is increasingly supplied digitally. Computers are a standard library
phenomenon. Data exchange between different libraries and between libraries and
their suppliers and customers is especially suited to take place electronically.
The fact that users are less and less willing to undertake a trip to the library
to gather information is an important additional factor. On the other hand,
information specialists want their information and their knowledge about that
information to be instantly accessible from every work place. The possibilities
of inter/intranet form an excellent solution to this dilemma.
Internet technology
makes it possible to access a library catalog from any platform. This so-called
platform independence is the biggest success factor of the Internet. And let’s
not forget that the omnipresent browser is an enormously powerful and easy to
use interface for any application. In almost every organization, using the
browser interface means that software roll-out is not necessary.
BIBIS
complies with the demands and wishes of the modern library customer and the
changes taking place in the library environment. Square Information Systems
already recognized these in 1997. This explains both why BIBIS long ago stopped
suffering from any growing pains as well as the large customer base which,
together with us, guarantees quality and stability.
What
are the BIBIS building blocks?
BIBIS is split into two major
sections:
- Librarian part: BIBIS
LMS (Library Management System)
- Online Public Catalog:
BIBIS OPAC
1. Librarian part
This
is the section where the documents (i.e. books, magazines, reports, laws,
articles, norms, etcetera) are ordered, described and circulated. It is also
used to register information with regard to suppliers, borrowers, budgets,
etcetera. In the catalogs, documents are optimally assigned to categories and
classifications. Here, the most suitable keywords, from the point of view of the
users, are added from the various thesauri and tables. This is also the point at
which can be decided which documents will not be manually described at all, but
instead need to be completely indexed and added to the knowledge collections on
a daily basis, for the benefit of the OPAC. By applying user profiles, every
knowledge worker can, every day or at any moment, be informed of the documents
that are important to him or her. These documents may originate from anywhere on
the intranet or Internet.
Applied
software
| &nbps; |
Name and version |
Location on server |
| Perl |
PERL version 5.6.1 |
perl |
| Database- & appl.mngmt |
Providex version 4.23 (32Bits version) |
pvx
|
| Mail spooler |
BIBIS MAIL |
BIBIS1->spoolers->emailer |
| Application |
BIBIS 2.xx |
BIBIS1 |
| Application |
SISS 1.01 |
BIBIS1 -> Spoolers |
2. Online Public Access Catalog
(OPAC)
The Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) is, as the name
suggests, the publicly accessible section of the BIBIS software. It is a very
powerful search engine, that can search on any of the words in the document
description or, when available, the digital version of the document itself,
regardless of which field the data is in. This is called full-text search.
In the OPAC, library
catalogs are made accessible to the public. Users can search the catalogs, print
and order the documents they contain and reserve documents that are already on
loan. OPAC’s extensive search facilities are not only useful to the visitors,
but also to the library staff. Ordering new documents and reserving documents
that are on loan, is done with the use of the BIBIS e-mail function. Apart from
the simple search facility (full-text only and completely guided), experts can
also perform advanced searches, in which each field can be used and specifically
linked. For the optimal use of the power of the search engine and the knowledge
of the information specialists, OPAC offers the thematical search option, in
which search questions can be linked to themes in a tree structure. It speaks
for itself that these themes will be completely tailored to the knowledge
structure of the organization.
Applied
software
| &nbps; |
Name and version |
Location on server |
| Perl |
PERL versie 5.00.502 |
perl |
| Database- & appl.mngmt |
ProvideX version 4.23 (32Bits) |
pvx
|
| Mail spooler |
BIBIS MAIL |
BIBIS1->spoolers-> emailer |
| Application |
Verity IS 3.7 |
Is->Verity |
General functioning of BIBIS software
BIBIS in a
"multi-environment"
The
diagram below is a simple representation of how the network communication takes
place in BIBIS between two separate environments.
The numbers in the picture
correspond to the following descriptions:
- A library user is the
only user who may access the BIBIS library server. On this server, activities
with regard to the library catalog take place.
- The so-called
customer-user performs searches in the library catalog on the OPAC and cannot
access the library server. Naturally it is also possible for a library user
tot perform searches on the OPAC.
- The library servers are
connected to the OPAC. The program BIB2VER on the OPAC makes sure that any
changes in the data in the catalog on the library server, is also carried
through in the OPAC catalog. This way, the OPAC constantly stays up-to-date.
- The
routers have been placed on both ends of the network to prevent employees to
access each other’s network.
BIBIS
software communication
The
scheme below displays how the communication takes place between the separate
software elements for the library section of BIBIS.
When the user has concluded his
activities on a certain page and has processed the data, Perl sends the
processed data to ProvideX. The data is processed by the BIBIS program and any
mutations are incorporated in the database.
An
example of when a Java script is started:
When a table in the BIBIS user interface is
selected by clicking on it, a Java script is started which displays the possible
choices and subsequently communicates the selected choice through Perl to
ProvideX.
BIBIS e-mail communication
In a part of the BIBIS program, a
message is generated as an ASCII text file (with the extension .eml) and saved
in the MAIL_OUT directory. The BIBIS e-mail spooler scans this directory for
.eml messages.
In
the BIBIS e-mail spooler, the ASCII message is converted to an SMTP message
(e-mail), after which the e-mail is passed to a mail server (SMTP server).
Finally, the SMTP server sends the message to the addressee. (SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer
Protocol.)
BIBIS
printer communication
De
BIBIS print program collects the data to be printed from the BIBIS database and
combines the data with the BIBIS print lay-out of the print program. This
combination is passed to the ProvideX print server, which links the network
printer name to the printer name chosen in BIBIS. After that, the print command
is sent to the TCP/IP print server, which in its turn sends the command on to
the network printer, which prints the data.
Database
independent
By default, the
underlying database in which all direct BIBIS data is stored, is a ProvideX
database. We have however a completely open ODBC structure, which makes it
possible for the underlying database to be Oracle, SQL, Informix, etcetera. We
have experience with these databases at our installations. The definition for
the underlying RDBMS is so flat, that no speed loss occurs due to for instance
Oracle constraints.
A little more information about the
advantages of ProvideX. ProvideX was developed by a large supplier who, for that
purpose, wrote an excellent proprietary version of the original Business Basic.
The company is called Sage and they have transferred the product to their
subsidiary Best Software 1999.
This makes ProvideX, more than any other product, extremely
suitable for building applications. The included tools and the clear language
features make it possible to quickly and consistently develop for instance
Internet technology based applications.
In addition to
that, ProvideX offers a large spectrum of facilities like the use of ODBC, DDE,
VBX’es, DLL’s multimedia, direct control of Windows printer drivers, Internet,
intranet, extranet, TCP/IP and even access to tools and databases developed by
third parties.
In comparison to other development
environments, a complete solution that is written in ProvideX is also usually
cheaper and offers better performance. ProvideX tasks use very little internal
memory and because of the variable record lengths, even a 50% space reduction
can be accomplished by the database itself. This does not however conceal the
fact that applications written in ProvideX cannot have an SQL/ODBC based
database as a basis. For more information on this subject we refer to the
following website: http://www.mbabizsof.com/database.htm.
The ProvideX 'native database
manager' (in combination with the solid source language) is clearly especially
designed to guarantee high levels of performance and data integrity for business
critical applications.
The
complete interchangeability of both programs and data files (no need for
conversions) between the various operating systems (Unix/Windos), offers a large
degree of flexibility and growth possibilities.
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