Creating Web-Accessible Databases: Case Studies for Libraries, Museums and Other Nonprofits (review)

Creating Web-Accessible Databases: Case Studies for Libraries, Museums and Other Nonprofits,ed. Julie M. Still. Medford, New Jersey: Information Today, 2001. 184 p. $39.50 (ISBN 1-57387-104-4)

No doubt every library has in its collections a selection of unique materials that are still only accessible via card files or filing cabinets. We dream of making these materials available to our patrons or co-workers via the Web, but aren't sure just how to go about it. Should we create the databases ourselves or hire someone else to do it? What software should be used? What should the retrieval options be? Through a collection of essays, Julie M. Still offers us ideas and options about how to make our materials more accessible to the public.

Still, who previously brought us The Library Web (Medford, NJ: Information Today, 1997), follows a similar tack with this collection. Creating Web-Accessible Databases is composed of twelve personal narratives detailing different aspects of the database creation process. The essays are intended to demonstrate how others have created databases for the Web, and to offer insights into how we might do the same.

Still handles her essayists with skill. Many are associated with Rutgers University, where she is Instruction Librarian at the Paul Robeson Library. This doesn't mean that the book suffers from a lack of universality. On the contrary, the essays Still chose to include and the order in which she presents them make the book all the more interesting. While not segmented as such, the essays tend to fall into duets and trios. The book begins with Ronald Jantz's experiences with the creation of a reusable database platform at Rutgers University's Scholarly Communication Center. Jantz's platform was used by Vibiana Bowman's (Reference Librarian at the Robeson Library) development of a database of Camden Courier-Post clippings. Husband and wife team Mary and John Mark Ockerbloom (University of Pennsylvania Libraries) offer their spin on the conception of Web meta-sites, "A Celebration of Women Writers" and "The On-Line Books Page" respectively. Their essay is succeeded by tracts on three history projects: one detailing the presentation of women's history projects on the Web by Melissa Doak of the Center for the Historical Study of Women and Gender at the State University of New York at Binghamton; another by Elizabeth Roderick describing a digitization project of historical documents by the Virginia Digital Library Program; and a third by Vicky Speck on the move of ABC-CLIO's Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life databases from CD-ROM to the Web. After that, two essays on Web-based used bookstores: one by a client of abebooks.com and another by its partner, 21 North Main, Inc. The book is rounded out by two final pairs: opinion pieces by reference librarians Anne Keenan (Blair, Nebraska Public Library) and Laura Spencer (Rutgers' Robeson Library) on database design from the user's perspective; and two technical essays on database applications that will shape the future of database design and development--metadata and XML.

As is apparent from its contents, Still's book is not just for libraries about libraries. It includes first-hand accounts of real-world situations from individuals, various types of libraries, and businesses (the museums and other non-profits in the title are strangely unrepresented). All of the essays include detailed explanations of the problems faced, software applications used, and solutions developed. They are written as Still instructed: casually, "as if having a lunch with a friend who asked how they did what they did or what they thought about the topic of the chapter" (p. vii). I visited many of the Web databases mentioned in the chapters and immediately saw applications for a Jantz-type reusable database at my own library; was charmed in meeting the Ockerblooms whose Web sites I...