4. The Online Presentation

After migrating the SGML data to a relational database, the question of how to access and maintain the bibliographic content had to be solved. Knowing about the advantages of the World Wide Web (WWW) as a global and easy-to-use media, we decided to use web technology for entering, modifying and querying the information stored in the bibliography database. This means that normal users as well as people entrusted with the maintaining of the database should be able to use a simple web browser to fulfill their needs. Accordingly, an appropriate WWW application had to cover both sides of database access: data input and data output. But since the end-user pages of the application seem to be of greater public interest than the administrative components, the following lines describe only the frontend as it appears for the majority of users out on the internet. This frontend is based on dynamic web pages created by PL/SQL-procedures that are stored directly inside the database. This was done because of security reasons as well as to reduce the response time for people accessing the bibliography from distant locations.

To allow the processing of complex queries, we built a special form for the online retrieval of bibliographic entries (see figure below). Users can fill in combinations of entry title, author name or publishing year - possibly using wildcards if they don't know the exact spelling. In addition, they can choose from pulldown lists to specify the entry's language, the contrastive language, the object words, and the headwords. After pushing the "search" button, the user gets a result list of all entries matching his criteria.

WWW frontend for complex retrieval queries:

Besides structured search, it is also possible to request an overview of all articles and books stored inside the bibliographic database. As in the result list mentioned above, each entry is presented as a hyperlink, connecting the user with detailed information about the specific book or article.

WWW presentation of all collected articles:

After the user clicks on a single article title, the system reads all information available for this entry and presents the result in a new browser window.

WWW presentation of a single article entry:

If the article is published in an anthology, the system offers a hyperlink to this book. The same goes for articles published in journals etc. When clicking on this hyperlink (see figure above), the user is connected with a page presenting information about the anthology (see figure below).

WWW presentation of a single book entry:

Furthermore, the system automatically checks the database table of stored periodicals and builds a hyperlink connecting a book with the series it belongs to.

WWW presentation of a single periodical entry:

Even if enriched with detailed illustrations, no text-based presentation can substitute the individual exploration of web-based applications. As already mentioned, the Bibliography of German Grammar is offered as a part of the grammatical information system GRAMMIS. To get a real-life impression of the database retrieval options, please visit us at http://www.ids-mannheim.de/grammis/.

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