Dynamic delivery of information via the World Wide Web
| Date | 01 March 2000 |
| Pages | 55-60 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/07378830010314474 |
| Published date | 01 March 2000 |
| Author | Justin R. Ervin |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Dynamic delivery of
information via the
World Wide Web
Justin R. Ervin
Introduction
As the Web began its explosion about 1994, a
staff member in Jackson Library (Cathy Carr),
realized the value that newspapers with full-text
articles on the World Wide Web could provide
to our patrons. Thus, News and Newspapers
Online was born as a simple list of links to about
100 newspaper Web sites. It quickly grew into a
multi-page site of about 500 links. Each region
(roughly continents) had its own page.
Having so many links on a single page quickly
became cumbersome, so the links were
separated into pages for each country (for most
of the world), or each province/territory/state
(for Canada and the USA). There were also
pages that listed all the sites for a particular
region (again, roughly by continent) and all the
sites that News and Newspapers Online offered.
This did much to improve the site from the
user's perspective (pages loaded significantly
faster). However, it only made matters worse
from the programmer's perspective, since each
link was now referenced in at least three places.
For example, The Washington Post was listed
under North America-DC, North America-All
Sites, and All Sites. Not only was this a
maintenance burden, it fostered inconsistency,
reducing the value of the site. The need for a
central database or some other more scalable
solution was obvious. Now, the site's pages are
served dynamically from a database of about
1,000 links. Information is consistent and more
features are available to users (such as searching
by language, and personalized lists).
News and Newspapers Online is one of the
most popular Web resources that the Jackson
Library offers. Though it makes up only six
percent of the files on the Library's server, it
accounts for about a quarter of page views. As
Figure 1 reveals, News and Newspapers Online
serves a steadily growing audience. In January
1998 (just after a period of significant growth)
News and Newspapers Online received 87699
hits; in January 1999 (during a holiday slump),it
received 141,685 hits, an increase of 62 percent.
Unfortunately, no statistics are available for
several months in the middle of 1998, between
the time that our campus computing authority
stopped reporting statistics for the University
The author
Justin R. Ervin is a Computing Consultant with the Walter
Clinton Jackson Library, The University of North Carolina at
Greensboro, Greensboro, North Carolina, USA.
jrervin@uncg.edu
Keywords
Databases, Internet, Information retrieval,
Information services
Abstract
Among the most ballyhooed interactive uses of the Web,
database access has, until recently, been a cross-platform,
multi-language, multi-interface endeavor not suited to the
faint-of-heart. Fortunately, Microsoft's ever-increasing dom-
ination of the software industry has led to the consolidation
of many tools in one application. Beginning with Internet
Information Server 2 (IIS 2), Microsoft brought together in
one service all the tools necessary to deliver an existing
database over the Web. This paper will present a case study
of converting a Web resource (News and Newspapers
Online, a comprehensive directory of online newspapers
from around the world that offer free access to current, full-
text content) from static HTML files to a database (using MS
Access 97), mounting the database on a Web server (using
IIS 4), building the user interface (using HTML), and
dynamically delivering the requested information (using
Active Server Pages and Active Data Objects).
Electronic access
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is
available at
http://www.emerald-library.com
55
Library Hi Tech
Volume 18 .Number 1 .2000 .pp. 55±60
#MCB University Press .ISSN 0737-8831
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