Database Project for Rachel Barrett, Fall 2003

Description of Situation

The purpose of this database is to assist students in Graduate School of Library and Information Studies Program at the University of Rhode Island in their research by providing up to date access to scholarly works which are relevant to their degree program. This database not only provides access to contemporary works in this field, but also exposes students to the various resources available to them to enhance their professional career. It will also, in time, provide a history of scholarly publications to students which will enable them to track any trends within the field of Library and Information Science.

To have access to the database, students must write and contribute their own annotations, a minimum of ten. This is part of the registration process, and students will not have access to the database until they have submitted their annotations. The idea is to provide a database of annotations by URI library students, for URI library students. It also enables students to be more fully engaged in the process of how databases are formed and how they evolve. A Graduate Assistant position will be created to oversee the project and check the submitted annotations for any errors.

It is searchable through a link that will be provided in the GSLIS web page and is password protected, but students must first sign up through the online form which will also include their first and last name, as well as a valid email address which links them to the University, i.e. must contain @uri.com or one of the other school variants.

Original Forms Used

Here is the sign up form we use:

Last Name

First Name

URI Email

ID #



Once the contact information is entered and verified through the system, the students are then directed to enter their ten annotations. Each annotation form looks like this:

Last Name

First Initial

Year

Article Title

Journal Title

Volume #

Issue #

Start page

End page

Annotation (should be no more than 50 words, or 350 characters):

If Applicable

Second Author's last name

Second Author's First Initial



Input Requirements and Data

Membership Sign-up Data
Field Data Length Type (A/N) Description
Last Name 20 A Student Last Name
First Name 15 A Student First Name
URI Email 35 A Email address issued by URI
ID # 9 N Student ID number issued by URI


Annotation Input Data
Field Data Length Type (A/N) Description
Last Name 20 A Last Name of Author
First Initial 1 A First Initial of Author
Year 4 N Year Article published
Title 35 A Title of Article
Journal 35 A Title of Journal
Volume # 4 N Volume of Journal
Issue # 4 N Issue of Journal
Start Page 4 N First page article appears on
End Page 4 N Last page article appears on
Second Last Name 20 A Last name of second Author
Second First Initial 1 A First initial of second author


Size of the Database

Presumably, approximately 50 students will enter records per semester. With each student adding 10 annotations, at 150 students per year, that is 1500 annotations per year. In five years, that will make 7500 annotations. The total number of characters, based on the Annotations Form listed above is 490 characters per annotation. Multiply this by the number of annotations estimated to be contributed in 5 years, that makes 3,675,000 characters, or 3.7 MB of space. The computer this program was designed on has a 120 MB Hard-drive, which is more than sufficient to support the growing database. The database file was designed using FileMaker Pro, version 6.0 for Windows. This version was downloaded for a trial basis to see if the program was user friendly enough to support the database. FileMaker Pro proved itself to be a relatively easily usable program. The one flaw with the find function is there does not appear to be a way of searching all the fields for one term. Rather, one has to search the article title and the annotation itself to be the most thorough. Hopefully, in future versions of the program, this problem will be corrected.



Conclusion

The existence of this database not only provides a valuable resource for GSLIS students, but it also enables them to get a sense of how these databases are structured and built. By gradually building it up over time, students have developed a resource for themselves by themselves. This type of activity helps promote a stronger sense of unity among students, and will show them what their peers consider current and pressing issues in the world of Library and Information Studies based on the types of articles available are available.

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