Subject: Progress on the database

Date: Thursday, January 17, 2002 6:07 PM

From: David A. Day <dad@email.byu.edu>

Greetings,

Thanks to all of you who have taken a few moments to test the database. It was clear that there were a few major bugs that needed to be fixed. Stephen Todd has work hard in the last two weeks to fix problems associated with record locking (avoiding conflicts when a record is called by more than one user). There was also a minor bug that would not let you create a parent ISAD record that was linked to the other related files (creators, publications, etc.). We believe these problems have been fixed. With these fixes in place the system should be stable and you should be able to create test records without the error messages that some of you have experienced. I urge you all to please give it a try. It will not matter if you create a completely fictional record, or even just type in some garbage text. At this point my hope is that you will test the system and send feedback on what you are experiencing.

Thanks very much to Anders Lonn and Chris Bornet for their comments on name authority.  Anders points on format are correct. The student inputting the names is just getting started and was making an understandable mistake. Anders comments helped us to catch and correct the error early on. That is a good example of why I need the watchful eyes of the full group. I just noticed today that we need to correct some problems of diacritics in the names. The whole question of name and subject authority will involve further discussions.

We are now working on implementing dates. Dates have been delayed because we plan to program the system to recognize standard text formats and convert them to date formats that can be sorted. We are working on that now and it should be ready soon.

I have added an new field to the parent ISAD “Identity” tab called “Project”. I added this field in anticipation of major projects that might be associated with the database. I am currently involved in discussions that might lead to a collaboration with our project and a project by the RSCD Committee of MLA to revise “Resources in American Music History”. In some of the test records you will notice the acronym RAMH. Adding this field would make it possible to isolate and search data entered in relation to such projects.

We are also working on some other cosmetic issues that should make the system easier to work with and more attractive. We are still looking for volunteers who would be willing to translate field labels and the help text to other languages. I have one volunteer from Italy. Are there others??

Thanks again to everyone who has tested the system. It would be very useful if all of you could create a few dummy records. That would help us to know if the system truly is stable. Please give it a try. We can easily isolate and clear records created with the “guest” log on.

Best regards,

David Day