Creating Database‐backed Library Web Pages: Using Open Source Tools

Citation

Calvert, P. (2007), "Creating Database‐backed Library Web Pages: Using Open Source Tools", The Electronic Library, Vol. 25 No. 4, pp. 484-485. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640470710779934

One of the saddest phrases ever to pass the lips of the average librarian is “Oh, I'll get the IT guys to do that.” It is sad for two reasons: first, it passes the responsibility for some of the most exciting, high profile and useful tasks in information management to people from a different profession, and second, it acknowledges that most librarians shy away from attempting to handle any IT matters beyond the most basic. This book has been written with the clear objective of persuading librarians that they really can develop an IT resource that they might otherwise pass over to someone else. In this case, Westman's target is developing the ubiquitous web site into something more than a passive set of screens. For many years it has been possible to have a database running behind a web site, giving the end‐user access to much more information than could ever be placed on the static pages. It is also the case that database‐backed pages are often easier to maintain because adding new data is only a matter of updating the database, not changing the HTML in the web page. The reason why so few librarians have implemented database‐based web sites is that it requires a skills set a little beyond that of writing basic HTML, and it is those extra skills which we can learn by reading Westman's book.

The author has chosen to use MySQL as the database used in his examples, and this has the advantage over Microsoft Access of being open source software. The author assumes only some ability with HTML, and specifically, knowing how to create forms in HTML. Everything else he claims to introduce to the reader in a step‐by‐step progression through the whole process. This does not just involve the writing of code, but covers “soft” project management topics as well, and this makes sense because there is no point in creating a web site with a database unless you know what it will be used for. The reader will probably need to be confident of his or her abilities because some of the concepts covered can seem rather intimidating at first: relational databases, Structured Query Language, data modelling, server‐side scripting, and user authentication. Yet in practice, none of these are really “difficult;” topics for the willing student, and that is really Westman's point: librarians and other information managers are too easily put off trying to do their own IT work when in reality it is not so hard to do.

What Westman would like is for all librarians to give this a try. That probably will not happen but if we can encourage more people to learn these relatively simple IT skills then librarians will not be so utterly dependent on the IT staff in the future. I recommend this book to all practitioners who are willing to try the project Westman describes.