A B C D Introduction to the ABCD software as an ISIS- and integrated library management tool.

A B C D

Introduction to the ABCD software as an ISIS- and WWW-based

integrated library management tool

Overview

Background informationTechnology overviewInstallation issuesModules overviewManagement and planning

Background information 1

ABCD = Automatisación de Bibliotécas y Centros de Documentación

ABCD = WinISIS + KOHA ISIS database creation and structures definition ISIS PFT's creation with testing ISO-2709 import/export, import from text files and

CSV with conversion tables All main library management functions :

cataloguing, OPAC, loans, statistics, serials management, portal, acquisitions


ABCD is a BIREME initiative supported by VLIR/UDC BIREME avails not only their best existing web-based ISIS

applications (SeCS, EMP, iAH) but also their experts co-ordinated by E. Spinak and hired G. Ascencio (Venezuela) to contribute from her Orbital Documental products

All BIREME ISIS-technology culminates into ABCD !

VLIR/UDC (Flemish University Development Co-operation) selected ABCD as preferred ILS and contributes funding and will provide French version plus training materials + pilot workshop through DOCBIBLAS project (E. de Smet)


ABCD aims at : Providing ISIS-users community with an

integrated library system which is suitable also for university libraries as

per requirements of VLIR/UDC e.g. MARC, AGRIS, METS, Z39.50, thesaurus-support High volumes (at least up to 500K full records) (close to) state-of-the-art functionality

Which can be(come) an alternative to KOHA c.s. for ISIS-users building on the existing ISIS reality


Planning of the development : September 2008 : first beta version distributed

for testing at Rio ISIS3 conference, including : Database management Cataloguing in MARC + CEPAL structures OPAC + Serials Management + Portal

End 2008 : full version 1.0 + Circulation + Statistics

March 2009 : Training materials in English, Spanish and French


Planning of 1st phase users : University libraries in Latin-America, e.g.

UMSS (Cochabamba, Bolivia) UCLV and public libraries network (Cuba)

University libraries in Africa. e.g. Moi University (Eldoret, Kenya) Mekelle and Jimma University (Ethiopia) Sokoine University (Tanzania)

Some 4 – 5 other VLIR/UDC partner universities are queuing (Suriname, Peru, Ecuador, Mozambique)

... many others for sure !

=> not just a newcomer on the scene…

ABCD Technology 1

WEB-based : The software runs as web-pages in a web-browser (IE, FF,

Opera, Chrome, Safari...) served by a web-server (Apache, Xitami, IIS)

Client-server can run on 'localhost' (127.0.0.1) on any PC with Windows or UNIX/Linux

Pages are written in PHP (v5.2) E.g. HTML Editor controls can be used

PFT's can contain all HTML codes as literals, including e.g. JavaScripts (e.g. to create links in OPAC)

Links are web-links (<A HREF>) and multimedia is provided by HTML

ABCD Technology 2

ABCD is ISIS-based : All data are stored in ISIS-databases

Until 2009 : 'classic ISIS-technology' upgraded with CISIS extensions, i.e. MST+XRF with 1Mb records upto 4 Gb databases, IF with 60-character keys

From 2009 : 'seamless' migration to NBP

ISIS-Script is used for data retrieval (C)ISIS Formatting Language is used throughout Existing ISIS-databases and their structures can

be imported

ABCD Technology 3

ABCD uses PHP : Current version 5.2 Free OS software with large developers community and very

wide usage Easy installation, often together with Apache, e.g. WAMP,

XAMP, EasyPHP... Already offers a wealth of 'controls' (existing codes for almost

any popular function), e.g. calendar, HTML Editor etc. Strong links with e.g. (MySQL and) Postgres e.g. to be used

in future Loans module ABCD uses JavaScript and AJAX

as part of its HTML-capabilities for enhanced interactivity and flexibility

ABCD Technology 4

Client-server with 2 options : CGI (Common Gateway Interface) : if $url variable is defined

in config.php, this 'classic' protocol will be used to call the wxis-server to serve ISIS-pages

Advantages : widely used, more secure Direct executable calling : if no $url variable is defined in

config.php, PHP will directly 'exec' the wxis-server as a call to the OS

Advantages : (a bit) faster Disadvantage : less secure, e.g. Windows 'cmd' needs

'executable rights' on WWW-sharing

ABCD Installation 1

Web-server : Apache PHP

Both are free OS softwares, most resp. very widely used web-server resp. scripting engine

Both can be installed independently or as part of packages such as WAMP, XAMP, EasyPHP

Apache needs PHP-modules to be included (in httpd.conf)LoadModule php5_module "c:/wamp/bin/php/php5.2.5/php5apache2_2.dll"

Apache needs 'Alias‘ declared in httpd.conf for : 'abcd' for the folder \abcd\www\htdocs 'bases' for the folder \abcd\www\bases ScriptAlias for the folder \abcd\www\cgi-bin

ABCD Installation 2

If not working : open in your browser \abcd\www\htdocs\php\test\test.php Test on PHP installation Test on WXIS being available, executable and

having access to users-DB

ABCD-users can/should be created first (by administration super-user : login 'abcd', password 'adm') : Create user Link to pre-listed DBs as 1 of 4 possible levels

ABCD Installation 3

4 user levels for added security : System Administrator : 'access to all areas'

(superuser, be careful !!) Database Administrator : can change, modify

read and write the given database Database Operator : can read and write the

given database Loans Operator : can read and write only the

Loans database

ABCD Modules 1

Database management Creation and modification of database structures

Internal and external database ID Can be copied from existing WinISIS-databases or

from existing ABCD-databases Can be created 'from scratch' with FDT, FST, FMT and

PFT-editors

Updating of created database structures FDT, FST, FMT, PFT + record validation Advanced search form (for cataloging) definition Help files

ABCD Modules 2

Database management : Utils Initialise DB Delete DB Lock/unlock DB

Help pages and translation editingBrowsing database folderOPAC configuration for DB

ABCD Modules 3

Cataloguing with main handy (!) toolbar : Browsing MFN's Searching by form, A-Z browser New or copied record, Z39.50 downloading Edit, stop edit, save or delete record Print, tools (import/export, GMOD, locks, IF) Help pages, Home

ABCD Modules 4

Serials Management with SeCS module

ABCD Modules 5

OPAC searching with iAH

ABCD Modules 6

The ABCD interactive portal : allows ‘localisation’, news/messages localhost/site/admin/index.php : allows editing of

ALL elements of the ‘site’ (portal/home page), e.g.

Which databases to search in meta-search Which links to provide for external resources for meta-

search Which partners exist in the network with other

information resources Communication : newsletter etc..

ABCD Modules 7 : Loans administration 1

Configuration screen : Identify source DB Configure users DB User and items types definitions Loans policy for objects (per user/item type,

days/hours, fines, reservation conditions etc.) Currency + calendar definition

Users management (editing of simple database with names, categories, etc.)

ABCD Modules 7 : Loans administration 2

Transactions : Loan or return :

Identification of the user by code (e.g. barcode) Identification of the object by code (e.g. barcode) Table display of all object in use by user with

immediate options to return

Reports and statistics : not yet available (expected decembe 2008)

ABCD Modules 8

Statistics and reports : preview

ABCD Modules 9

Acquisitions management Not yet available, expected March 2009

ABCD : Management 1

Timing : Test version (beta) to be tested September-

December 2008 Loans, Statistics + Acquisition modules to be

developed by December 2008 loans/statistics : 75% ready now (September) Acquisitions : simple 'pre-cataloguing' module will be

produced by end of 2008

Training materials (in En, Sp, Fr) to be produced by March 2009

ABCD Management 2

Other additional developments : Loans module using Postgres with dynamic

coupling over LDAP to existing user-registration systems

UMSS (Cochabamba, Bolivia) is interested to do this French version to be produced (by DOCBIBLAS

project from VLIR/UDC) Arabic version ? => is being planned ... ???

ABCD Management

Separate from ISIS co-ordination or not ?Communication through ISIS-list or

dedicated OS-tools ?Co-ordination through BIREME

Who ? How ?

Migration to NBP in 2009 : how, guidance ?

ABCD configuration : directory structure

Main subfolders in /ABCD : apache : the Apache server software php : the PHP scripting software www : the application directory

www-subdirectory : bases (see infra) htdocs : the ‘home folder’ for Apache

Apache configuration : httpd.conf ServerRoot "/ABCD/apache“ Listen 9090 (to use port 9090 instead of 80) PHPIniDir "/ABCD/php" DocumentRoot "/ABCD/www/htdocs“ ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ "/ABCD/www/cgi-bin/"

ABCD configuration (1) : config.php

Start sequence: index.php includes config.php and calls inicio.php, which includes homepage.php

config.php in /htdocs is crucial file as it contains the main ‘variables’ of the system : $db_path="/ABCD/www/bases/";

Also : paths for images, wxis-server and scripts $lang="en"; $lang_db="en"; $wxisUrl=""; //"http://localhost:90/wxis/wxis.exe"; $institution_name="BIREME in co-operation with VLIR/UOS"; $distributor_url="www.ua.ac.be";

inicio.php and homepage.php create the visible pages

ABCD configuration (2) :

header.php : rather standard => don’t change

footer.php : version and year informationthe use of CSS :

php/styles : basic.css php/css : layout.css, styles.css and

template.css But : many other CSS for other modules still to

be made homogenous for non-beta version …

ABCD configuration (3) : databases

The folder ‘www/bases’ is the default database-folder for ABCD

A subdirectory ‘PAR’ contains the parameter-files for all databases E.g. ‘users.par’ :

users.*=/ABCD/www/bases/users/data/users.* In case of ‘exe’ (not cgi) setup : environment

variable %path_database% can be used, e.g. dblil.*=%path_database%dblil/data/dblil.*

ABCD configuration (4) : databases

Each database has the following directory-structure : pfts : for each language-subdirectory PFT’s and TAB’s def : for each language-subdirectory FDT’s and TAB’s data : the MST/XRF/IFP files cnv : for conversion files ayudas : for help files (for each DB in each language)

bases.dat (in /bases) : text-file with internal/external names E.g. marc|Marc catalogue

lang.tab : text-file with language codes

ABCD configuration : names, logo’s etc.

Index.php <div header class> header presents heading names : <div class="institutionalInfo">

<h1>BIREME - Centro Latino Americano e do Caribe de Informação em Ciências da Saúde</h1><h2>ABCD</h2></div>

E.g. for main OPAC-portal page : C:\ABCD\www\bases\site\html\en\bvs.html: contains reference to logo’s E.g. main logo left :

<img src="/img/logovliruos.png“ … E.g. logo’s to UN-bodies right :

<img src="../image/public/skins/classic/en/logoOpas.gif" alt="BIREME | PAHO | WHO logo"/>

ABCD main pages

Supposing : localhost:90Cataloguing : http://localhost:90/index.php

Loans : idem, login as ‘Loans administrator’Portal with OPAC :

http://localhost:90/site/(php/)index.phpPortal CMS :

http://localhost:90/site/admin/index.php Serials Control :

http://localhost:90/secs-web/index.php

ABCD test passwords

administration of ABCD portal : http://localhost:90/site/admin/ user: adm pass: x

SeCS-Web : http://localhost:90/secs-web/

administrador: admsecs/ADM

ABCD : cataloguing + Loans http://localhost:90/ administrador abcd / adm

ABCD users management

Before everything else : create your own administrator login and password and delete the default one.Start from : ‘Data Entry’ (cataloguing)

Each user needs to get assigned all databases to get access to !

For each database : access level (administrator/db admin/db operator/loans operator) needs to be defined!

The extended FDT of ABCD (1)

RowType :

Field or Group (=repeatable field with subfields) Fixed Field MARC fixed field and leader Line or heading

TagName/title of field


I : Identifier field : the field to be used for listing the records in the A->Z list Only one can be identified as such

RepeatableSubfield delimitersPre-literals : punctuation to replace

subfield-delimiters in data-entryInput type : all HTML types + table, date,

password, upload file


Picklist definition : Type : DB, Thesaurus or table Name (of DB, thesaurus or table) Prefix : used to identify index-section Browse : details of external picklist Display format : PFT to show items in picklist, can be

external PFT (with @), e.g. with ‘select…. endsel’ series to adjust to different fieldtags

Extract as format : PFT to define what to enter Default value Help page for use with this entry

Definition of the FST

Creation of PFT’s

Definition of validation rules

A B C D Introduction to the ABCD software as an ISIS- and integrated library management tool.

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