[246] in Information Retrieval
Re: mosaic catalog
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (efc@MIT.EDU)
Fri Jul 22 10:22:44 1994
To: elibdev@MIT.EDU
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 94 10:22:11
From: efc@MIT.EDU
> I've been playing with the hyperpals online catalog
> available at http://bingen.cs.csbsju.edu/pals/hyperpals.html
> on the web.
I took a look at this catalog and was really impressed by the extent to
which the PALS system had really become a _hypertext_ catalog. The links
from within a record to other similar records (call number, title, author,
subjects, etc.) make browsing the catalog a breeze. I also think they've
made good use of HTML to produce a legible full record display, though
there is room for improvement here.
I found the system a bit less than stable. It did not always execute the
searches I'd asked for and at one point WinMosaic even crashed while I was
using the system (of course, this could be unrelated to HyperPALS).
I also found the lists returned to be a bit hard to use. They seemed to be
sorted by title (I'd done "general" searches), but the authors were listed
first on each line making the list look pretty random. Also, clicking on an
author in the list would have a different result than clicking on a title
in the list... I'd expected a direct link from the list to the associated
records and this was not always the case.
In one way I liked HyperPALS more than Willow: searches did not result in
window clutter. With Willow I sometimes feel the app has taken over my
whole workstation and it can be hard diging out from under the windows
(sometimes three or four deep). HyperPALS did its thing in one window...
and if I wanted more (at least with XMosaic) I could clone them when _I_
wanted.
Anyway, the beauty of a "webbed" catalog is that you really don't have to
worry about the _details_ of UI implementation. And imagine as we
start linking other Internet resources to our catalog... what
better place to see those links than in a web browser? HyperPALS is
certainly a nifty start.
...Eric
