Yale Specifications for Orbis on the Web
Introduction
To CrossPlex developers at SofTouch Systems:
The index page to this directory serves as a guide to the sample HTML pages for the CrossPlex-enabled Yale University Library online catalog. The sample screen displays are accompanied by explanations, either at the bottom of each page, or in separate documents. These sample pages and explanations were prepared in a short space of time by eight different Yale staff and therefore vary somewhat in style and content. Feel free to utilize any of our HTML in the CrossPlex catalog for Yale, but please check it over for accuracy and consistency, since it may not all be ready for production use.
We have invested a great deal of time in designing some aspects of the catalog, such as the keyword searching form (#21), the presentation of detailed holdings (#13.3 - 13.5), and the navigation logic. We aimed for a simple design, light on graphics, which will perform well with PPP connections and avoid confusing non-technical users. Please let us know if any of the requested features will significantly slow down performance or take an unreasonable amount of time for you to program. Some features are much more important than others and may justify the cost, but others may not be worth the time or the performance hit. We are also open to suggestions for improvement in the design, although we are quite happy with the way this package of demo pages has turned out. The catalog must operate well on versions of Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers which are JavaScript 1.1 compliant. At the Library we use primarily Netscape version 4.5 and above (this is the browser we used in developing our sample pages), but many of the Library users prefer Internet Explorer.
"Orbis" is Yale's name for the NOTIS system supporting our online catalog. The official name of the CrossPlex implementation will be "Orbis on the Web". The graphic at the top center of each page will display this name. The graphic at the bottom center of each page will be a navigational image map. There will be three different graphics at the bottom as follows. We expect to have them finished by July 30th.
We look forward to working with you on this project and eagerly await Yale's new Orbis on the Web.
-- The Yale CrossPlex Orbis Design Team
Yale University Library
Last revised: July 30, 1999
Contact: Frederick Martz (frederick.martz@yale.edu)
http://www.library.yale.edu/~coleman/crossplex/fmmintro.html