Recently in Databases Category

SLA Conference Report - At the Exhibit Hall

There seems to be a common thread in my conversations with vendors in the exhibit area. Many are offering applications that require no IT support, mainly hosted solutions. This has been a trend for a while, but I'm encouraged to see even more such products out there.

Caspio is one hosted service that caught my eye. If you have a database that you want to post on your Intranet or web site, you upload the data, create a search form, and grab the code to embed in your pages. They host it all, and can also provide consulting services if you need help. I haven't played with it yet, but plan to.

By the way, Denver is a great conference town. Great shopping, restaurants, public transportation, and the weather has been perfect! Wish you were here!

Breaking news - You heard it here. Actually, you've heard it everywhere. Al Gore, the keynote speaker on Sunday, says he's not running for president. At least, not yet. I was hoping he'd announce right here at SLA. It would have put special libraries on the map! :-)

The name dtSearch certainly sounds familiar, but I can't remember where I've heard it. I don't know anyone who has used it at their firm or library, so that can't be it. Maybe I've seen it mentioned in PC Magazine? Perhaps it runs a database product I've used?

This lack of visibility in the library community is exactly what irritates Ernest Perez. In his Online article, "dtSearch: The Little Search Engine That Could," he points out that "Despite all the success of this database application product in the software general marketplace, it appears to me that the proefssional library community seems to have pretty much ignored it."

If you're wondering what its capabilities are, you definitely need to read this article. It sounds quite powerful, and yet is relatively inexpensive and it runs on Windows and Linux.

Is anyone out there using it as an intranet search engine? For other purposes? If so, let us know! And you probably should let Ernest Perez know, too. It might make him feel better.

(Note to Reader: Online articles typically appear on Looksmart's FindArticles a few months after publication.)

Spreadsheets are wonderfully useful things, especially for tasks involving calculations. But even Excel can be pushed to it's limit if it's not the right tool for the job.

That's easy for me to say. I know Microsoft Access much better than I know Excel. But trust me when I tell you that for many library-related tasks, databases are the only way to go. If you'd like to get started using databases take a look at "Spreadsheet Does Not = Database" in the Feb. 3, 2004 issue of PC Magazine.