Library - Future items for consideration

[Andrea Haft <ahaft@cleannorth.org>]

You may want to consider making some of the data entry fields mandatory
prior to a 'submit.'

The benefit would be that there would be less chance of a partial record
being inadvertently kept which would be both annoying to the user and
would call into question the integrity of the database.

My suggestions would be:

Panel 1

1.    Title - every document will have one;
2.    Author - ditto even if the author is Anon.  (Anon. showing that an
author was searched for and not found.)
3.    Call Number - most important otherwise the document will be lost
on the shelf.
4.    Abstract - all documents in this database will have an abstract
even if it is a one liner.
5.    Date of Publication - even if the date is listed as n/d for 'no
date' - see item 2.

Panel 2

1.    Barcode - for the same reason as call number - from my perspective
this is a double check on the record entry as well.

These are not pressing issues at this time because I am the only one
entering data to the database and my own checks and balances are in
place.    This kind of problem is most likely to arise when there is an
inexperienced cataloguer entering data.

Andrea Haft