New Books List for your OPAC: Shareware that

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New Books Listfor your OPAC Shareware thats
worth every penny!

• Debbie Morrow
• Automation Librarian
• Grand Valley State University
• GLUGM 2002, Fri. October 4
• ISU, Terre Haute IN

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New Books ListThe Concept
Michael Dorans New Books List is, in part, a
bit of clever window dressing what in French is
called trompe loeil
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or fools the eye!
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New Books ListThe Concept
It looks like part of Voyager, but it really
isnt its just a little bit of extra
programming that you can drop in place to dress
up your Voyager catalog. And it doesnt cost
anything!
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New Books ListA note about versions
GVSU has implemented the 4.0 version of the New
Books List on our SUN Unix server. Since then,
Michael Doran has released version 5.0, which
primarily introduces a multilingual interface
capability and also a Windows server
version. Well be looking at the Unix
installation, and focusing on those aspects which
5.0 has in common with 4.0.
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Adding New Books Listrequires

• Michael Dorans website
• newbooks.pl
• newbooks.cgi
• opac.ini
• webvoy.htm
• a little ingenuity!

newbooks.ini newbooks.language
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New Books ListMichael Dorans website
The place to begin is rocky.uta.edu/doran/autolis
t/ Here youll find out about Michael Doran
(Systems Librarian, University of Texas at
Arlington), the current version of his program,
how to download it to your
server, installation tips,
etc.
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New Books ListGetting the goods

• Find the rocky.uta.edu/doran/autolist/INSTALL.unix
  .txt document on the website, and read it all the
  way through. All the basic information you need
  is included in
• Prerequisites
• Installation scenarios
• Installation steps
• Testing and configuration steps
• Free Advice
• Mailing list
• Bug reports
• Support

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New Books ListGetting the goods (cont.)
Using the Download link, get the file
newbooks-5.0.tar.gz onto your PC, then FTP it
to your Voyager server a directory such as
/m1/incoming/newbooks/ is convenient. Follow the
directions to unzip and distribute the files on
your server.
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New Books ListTesting

• After youve followed the initial Installation
  steps, youre ready to get down to business
• Follow the directions in
  Testing and configuration steps to
• 1) Do a pre-configuration test, and
• 2) Generate your own data
• Once you have newbooks.pl working, make it a
  Voyager cron job that runs once a day. This was
  the only step where I needed the assistance of
  our Unix system administrator!

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New Books List and configuration
Finally, the fun part! Once you know that the
out of the box version of the cgi script works
on your server, and that the Perl script can
successfully extract data from your Voyager
database, you can get down to the real fun of
doing your own customized Voyager New Books List
trompe loeil
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New Books Listnewbooks.pl
One of the wonderful features of Michael Dorans
add-on program is the care that hes taken with
internal documentation. Even a novice or
non-programmer can read through his code and make
some sense out of it. Lets take a look at
newbooks.pl

• newbooks.pl (executable program)
• A Perl program that extracts "new books" data
  from your Voyager database and outputs a
  newbooks.txt file.

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New Books Listnewbooks.pl (cont.)
The INSTALL doc directs you to edit the
configurable elements of newbooks.pl, selecting
the desired options for your site. Comments in
the code, often quite detailed, provide hints and
tips.
gvsudb
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New Books Listnewbooks.pl (cont.)
Following the section with configuration options,
theres nothing else you must do here and you
may not want to try! However, for the
adventuresome
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New Books Listnewbooks.pl (cont.)
GVSU wanted to offer intervals of a few weeks, up
to 16 weeks or a full semester not just a
choice of some weeks or months. Changing the
number of days in the calculated interval for
weeks accomplished this.
127
134
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New Books Listnewbooks.pl (cont.)

ConstructSQL
This routine returns an SQL query according
to which option was selected in the
configuration section. sub ConstructSQL my
(sql_pass) _at__ The SQL option "choice"
is an artifact of previous versions. This
SQL query's embedded logic as to "what
constitutes a new item" should be adequate
for all sites. If it isn't, you may create your
own however, it must output the same
fields in order for the newbooks.cgi to
utilize it. -mdd 2/27/02 Two lines
modified in SQL pass 2 per MDD in order to
find e-links in BIB, not MFHD -dmo my
date_condition_one SetInterval("one") my
date_condition_two SetInterval("two") if
(sql_pass eq "1") return (" select
distinct db_name.bib_text.isbn,
db_name.bib_text.author, db_name.bib_text.tit
le,
At GVSU, we store our 856 Linked Resources in
our Bib records, rather than in our MFHDs as UTA
has done. In 5.0 theres a configuration option
to handle this in 4.0 Michael Doran helped me
with a change to the SQL query which selects new
items from the local database.
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New Books Listnewbooks.cgi, etc.
Once you have the newbooks.pl program working and
customized, the next step is setting up the
configuration files and customizing the
newbooks.cgi script that controls the interface
your users see on the screen
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New Books Listnewbooks.cgi, etc. (cont.)

• newbooks.cgi (executable program)
• A CGI/Perl program that displays the initial New
  Books search form, and then displays the results
  pages from user searches.
• newbooks.ini (configuration file)
• This file (new in 5.0) contains configuration
  variables that are used to customize the
  newbooks.cgi program.
• newbooks.English/other lang. (language modules)
• These files (new in 5.0) provide the language of
  the user interface. Only one language module is
  required, but all modules can be utilized if
  desired.

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New Books Listnewbooks.cgi
.cgi Version 4.0
Edit below to customize
for
your site.


Editorial Version 4.0 offers
many new options for customization. The
original idea for the New Books List was that it
be a rather minimalist solution. However,
I've discovered that minimalism is not a
universal preference. I hope that people who
install this program keep in mind usability
for library patrons when deciding how many of
the extra "bells and whistles" to use.
Simplicity (and restraint) can often be a
virtue. -)
No editing required!



The New Books List can be customized by editing
newbooks.ini and the appropriate language
module(s). There shouldn't be any need to
edit this program. However, if you are a
Perl programmer or just adventuresome, then
by all means have a go. Commenting is minimal -
if you don't understand what the code does,
chances are you don't want to mess with it.
-)
.cgi Version 5.0
In version 5.0 basic configuration is done in the
.ini file and the language file(s)
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New Books Listnewbooks.ini
The .ini file includes most of the configuration
choices that you can make. Again, the choices
are thoroughly documented, including interactions
with the .pl file.
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New Books Listnewbooks.ini (cont.)
The Colors stanza in newbooks.ini is what makes
the New Books search screen look just like part
of your WebVoyáge spend some time getting this
right! GVSUs OPAC includes a background JPEG,
ivory.jpg, which is added in here.
body_background "/images/ivory.jpg"
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New Books Listnewbooks.language
The language configuration files,
newbooks.English, etc., allow you to customize
all the values for any textual labels, etc. For
example, the short_blurb text value is
customized at GVSU to read as follows
short_blurb "Books, Internet resources,ltbr
/gtetc. recently added toltbr /gtthe GVSU Local
Catalog."
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New Books Listnewbooks.cgi (reprise)

• For the adventuresome, more serious customizing
  may involve studying and changing code in
  newbooks.cgi cautiously!
• A big part of the .cgi program is HTML code
  defining the appearance of the search and results
  screens. We wanted to make some minor changes
• At GVSU, we wanted to search by intervals of 2
  weeks, 4 weeks, 2 months (8 weeks), or 4 months
  (16 weeks).
• And we wanted to add some elements to the display
  of the hit list resulting from a search.

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Changing the search intervals menu
English interface Form labels
select_location_label "Select Location"
display_interval_label Display"
sort_by_label "Sort by"
search_for_label "Search for
(optional)"
.english
NewSearchForm
--code omitted-- lttd
valign"top" width"30"gt ltfont
color"active_font_color"gtltbgtnbspnbspdisplay
_interval_labellt/bgtlt/fontgtltbr /gt
nbspnbspltselect name"week" size"4"gt
ltoption selected"selected"
value"1"gtlast_text intervallt/optiongt
ltoption value"2"gtlast_text 2
interval_plurallt/optiongt
ltoption value"3"gtlast_text 3 interval_plurallt/o
ptiongt ltoption
value"4"gtlast_text 4 interval_plurallt/optiongt
lt/selectgt lt/tdgt
.cgi
Intervals of weeks or months
This value is set in
newbooks.ini. if (interval eq "month")
interval "month" interval_plural
"months" else interval "week"
interval_plural "weeks" This goes in the
period box of the form last_text "last"
.english
Values encoded in the .cgi are defined in the
.ini and .language files, and control the
screen display.
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Changing the search intervals menu
NewSearchForm
--code omitted-- lttd
valign"top" width"30"gt ltfont
color"active_font_color"gtltbgtnbspnbspdisplay
_interval_labellt/bgtlt/fontgtltbr /gt
nbspnbspltselect name"week" size"4"gt
ltoption selected"selected"
value2"gt2 weekslt/optiongt
ltoption value4"gt4 weekslt/optiongt
ltoption value8"gt2 monthslt/optiongt
ltoption value16"gt4 monthslt/optiongt
lt/selectgt lt/tdgt
Changed to 20, to size the menu properly after
deciding text
Intervals of weeks or months
This value is set in
newbooks.ini. if (interval eq "month")
interval "month" interval_plural
"months" else interval "week"
interval_plural "weeks" This goes in the
period box of the form last_text "last"
For our purposes, the variables didnt work, so
we substituted fixed text.
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Changing the search intervals menu (cont.)
NewSearchForm --code
omitted-- lttd valign"top" width20"gt ltfont
color"active_font_color"gtltbgtnbspnbspdisplay
_interval_labellt/bgtlt/fontgtltbr /gt
nbspnbspltselect name"week" size"4"gt
ltoption selected"selected"
value2"gt2 weekslt/optiongt
ltoption value4"gt4 weekslt/optiongt
ltoption value8"gt2 monthslt/optiongt
ltoption value16"gt4 monthslt/optiongt
lt/selectgt lt/tdgt
Earlier on in the script the variable date_range
is associated with an HTML form tag name
element my date_range formdata'week' A
value element combined with nameweek in
this HTML select tag is submitted when the user
searches. Later in the .cgi, in the ReturnList
section, records of the right age are selected
if ( week lt date_range )
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Changing the search results list
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Changing the search results list (cont.)
While implementing the New Books List, I looked
at many of the other Voyager OPACs where it had
been added, and collected ideas here and there.
Adding the .gif with the key to the Amazon and
Barnes Noble buttons was easy, after borrowing
newbna3.gif from University of Rochesters New
Books screen.
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But to add the buttons and links to each line
with an ISBN that could be searched on, I
contacted University of Rochester and asked if
theyd be willing to share their code. Once I had
a copy of Rochesters .cgi, it wasnt too hard to
figure out what section to copy into our own
and learn a few more HTML tricks!
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The additional code looks at each entry retrieved
from newbooks.txt. If theres an ISBN, it
displays a .gif (src/images/newbna2.gif) in the
box with the line number. Clickable areas in
newbna2.gif are mapped to links which do ISBN
searches in the BNA and Amazon databases, so that
users can get to reviews and excerpts of the new
titles.
http//search.barnesandnoble.com
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New Books Listopac.ini (Voyager)
opac.ini (configuration file) This Voyager file
contains configuration variables that are used to
customize your librarys WebVoyáge. In a
nutshell, you just need to do the following edit
in opac.ini to tack the additional tab on after
the Course Reserve tab on your search screens,
inserting your OPACs colors
Course_Reserve_Search_Page -lines
omitted- Tab_TextCourse Reservelt/agtnbsplt/fontgt
nbsplt/thgtlt/trgtlt/tablegtlt/tdgt lttdgtnbspnbsplt/td
gtlttdgtlttable border"0" cellspacing"0"
cellpadding"0"gt lttrgtltth nowrap
bgcolor"336699"gtnbspltfont color"ccffff"gtnbs
plta style"colorccffff" href"/cgi-bin/newbooks
.cgi"gtNew Itemslt/agt
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New Books List at GVSU Voyager Before
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New Books List at GVSU Voyager After!
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New Books Listwebvoy.htm (Voyager)
webvoy.htm (HTML file) This HTML file is the
front page to your librarys WebVoyáge, and can
be entirely customized. Chances are, your Voyager
site has in some way customized or completely
recreated this page already. At GVSU, we just
added another section to our webvoy.htm page,
with a New Items link
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New Books ListExamples from other libraries
Looking for ideas and code to borrow is easy
Michael Doran asks new sites to send him links to
add to this list of NBL users.
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New Books ListExamples from other libraries

• Put links to your New Books List (and your OPAC)
  in other places, like on your librarys main web
  page

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New Books ListExamples from other libraries

• Put links to your New Books List (and your OPAC)
  in other places, like on your librarys main web
  page

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New Books ListExamples from other libraries

• Put links to your New Books List (and your OPAC)
  in other places, like on your librarys main web
  page