Every year a few lucky GSLIS students finish the course requirements of their MLIS programs and prepare for that last hurdle in their quest to become professional librarians--The Comprehensive Examination. An important part of their exam preparation includes reviewing the current topics in recent library journals used in their student research, such as Library Journal, School Library Journal, and Reference & User Services Quarterly. These journals sufficiently represent most of the topics--cataloging, ethics, reference etc., needing review. However, the fields of information technology and information science are covered by many journals that might fall outside of their usual reading habits.

With this in mind, this database consisting of LSC 508 student article annotations was created as a tool for those preparing for the exam. It will ultimately hold the annotations and bibliographic information from a wide range of articles and journals submitted by 625 students over the course of five years.

Database Capacity
This database was designed to hold 9,375 records. A record with the fields completely filled in, has a document size of 4k. With 675 students contributing to the database, its total size could ultimately reach 37.5 Mb. This keeps it small enough to be stored on a disk that can used on most computers. My 5 year old Mac, with 256 Mb of RAM and a 1 gig hard drive, handles Photoshop files of this size and much larger without problems.

Calculations
25 students per class x 5 classes per year x 5 years = 625 students
625 students x 15 annotations = 9,375 records
4k per record x 15 records x 625 students = 37500k or 37.5Mb

Screen Layout
I saved 2 layout views. The main layout, or abstract layout, gives the record number, complete bibliographic information, keywords, and annotation. The user can also choose the citation layout, which hides the annotation and keywords. This allows the user to get quick, concise search results while fitting more records per print out page.

To facilitate data-entry, the structure of the class annotations is used as a basis for the data input screen. The annotations were broken down into five fields with record number and keyword fields added to complete the record.The program used to create this database, Appleworks 6, does not use a character number input to define fields. Their size is adjusted manually, much like a graphics program, using click and drag handlebars. Because the size is gauged visually, character and digit sizes are approximate and lines is the unit used to measure larger fields.

Fields
Record: This field allows the user, who has found a record, to note its number and retrieve it again without typing in a more cumbersome title, or name of the author. The field allows approximately 4 digits, as the record capacity is 9,375.

Author(s):
This field allows the user to find all of the articles by one author in the database. Although some articles have multiple authors, it is only one line long, as the APA style only requires two authors last names and initials. It is one line long, twice the size as the longest author field in the database.

Year:
This field allows the user to sort all articles by year in descending order, as well as, finding all of the articles published in one given year. It allows approximately 4 digits.

Article:
This field allows the user to find an article by title. It is three lines long, one line longer than the longest title currently in the database.

Journal/vol/iss/pgs:
This field acquaints the user with all of journals and completes the bibliographic citation, giving the user the information needed to find the article. It is one line long, twice the size of every journal currently listed in the database.

Keyword:
This field allows the user to do a keyword search, finding all the articles on a given topic. It is one line long, twice the size of the longest keyword field currently in the database.

Annotation:
This field gives the user a summary of the article, allowing the user to judge its usefulness. It is eight lines long, twice the size of the longest annotation currently in the database.

Database Use
Ideally, multiple copies of this database on disk could be loaned through the library and the GSLIS department to graduating students. Although the program does not any security capability and students could conceivably change the data on a database copy, a master copy would be kept at the GSLIS department and updated periodically by authorized staff, thus avoiding any tampering with the permanent data. The copies also could be periodically examined for damage or tampering, as all library materials are.

Software Usability
Appleworks 6 was a surprisingly easy program to use giving the user the opportunity to create a no frills database almost immediately. Once the user gets beyond the beginner stage, there are many graphic tools and enhancements to be explored, as well as the creation of multiple layouts, sorts, macros, etc. The click and drag style alteration of the field size was very intuitive, however, not as precise as requiring a specific number of characters. Also areful consideration of how many and what kind of fields is needed before fields are defined. The amount of fields used in a record is limited to seven. If less than seven fields have been defined, other fields can not be added later.

Forms:
Dr. Carson provided the template that was used as a form.