LIS 386.13
Information Technologies
and the
Information Professions
Web-Based Databases
R. E. Wyllys
Last revised 2002 Jul 25
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions
Lesson Objectives
• You will
– Understand the four main types of uses of
databases on the World-Wide Web
– Become familiar with some of the tools and
techniques involved in developing Webbased databases (WBDBs)
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions
What Do WBDBs Do?
• What are the purposes for which WBDBs are
used? Feiler (1999) distinguishes four main
purposes:
– "Publishing data on the Web."
• "Here, you use the Web as a publication tool; browsers
interact with dynamic hypertext markup language
[DHMTL], application servers, and database queries to
present the information as requested. The data flow is
one way: from the database to the user."
– "Sharing data on the Web."
• "In this scenario you use databases and the Web to
share data among people; the data flow is bidirectional—
some people enter data, other people look it up."
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions
What Do WBDBs Do? (cont'd)
– "E-commerce."
• "This area includes all online commercial transactions.
Although the data flow is bidirectional, it typically consists
of a relatively large amount of data that flows from the
database to the customer (during the shopping and
evaluation steps); that is followed by a relatively small
amount of data that flows from the customer to the
database as the sale is consummated."
– "Totally database-driven Web sites."
• "You can use databases to generate Web pages and
keep them up to date. In this case, the database is
usually invisible to the user; it is a behind-the-scenes
assistant to a Web site."
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions
WBDBs Used for Publishing on the Web
• Here are some examples, from A to Z, of WBDBs whose primary
purpose is publishing information. I recommend that you look at these
WBDBs bearing that purpose in mind, and that you think about how they
succeed or fail in achieving the purpose.
– WBDBs on astronomy
• The Space Telescope Science Institute offers pictures taken by the
Hubble Space Telescope and other information on astronomy
• The Planetary Society is an organization that promotes exploration of
the solar system. Its Website offers news about current and prospective
exploratory activities
– WBDBs about automobiles
• Edmunds.com is primarily a DB for publishing information about automobiles
(although it also maintains a forum for exchanges of information and opinions)
• National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; its name explains it
• Insurance Institute for Highway Safety; its name explains it
– WBDBs for library and information science
• American Society for Information Science and Technology provides both
information and links
• Association of Information Management Professionals (formerly, Association
of Records Managers and Administrators) provides both information and
links
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions
WBDBs Used for Publishing (cont'd)
– WBDBs for library and information science (cont'd)
• American Library Association main page
– ALA Resources for Parents, Teens and Kids provides links, in itself a form of
publishing information*
– The Librarian's Guide to Cyberspace for Parents & Kids provides both information
and links*
– Great Sites: Amazing, Spectacular, Mysterious, Wonderful Web Sites for Kids and
the Adults Who Care About Them provides links*
– Teen Hoopla: An Internet Guide for Teens provides both information and links*
• Music Library Association provides both information and links
• National Archives and Records Administration provides Access to Archival
Databases, a research tool that makes a selection of the Archives' most popular
electronic records available to the public over the Internet
• Society of American Archivists provides both information and links
• Special Libraries Association provides both information and links
• Texas Library Association provides both information and links
– WBDBs on various subjects
• Consumer Reports Online provides ratings of goods and services, along with
general advice on personal finance and product safety
• Dilbert.com provides access to the Dilbert comic strip
• Flags
the World
is E.
a WBDB
about
vexillology,
the these
studysites.
of flags
*I amof
indebted
to Ms.
Joanmarie
Marks
for suggesting
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions
WBDBs Used for Publishing (cont'd)
– WBDBs on various subjects (cont'd)
• frankandearnest.com offers access to the Frank and Earnest (with some of the
world's best puns)
• Hoaxbusters, "a public service of the CIAC and the U.S. Department of
Energy" exposes Internet hoaxes
• Iceland offers a wide variety of information about Iceland
• InternetNews.com provides news about the Internet, especially about
commercial activities
• Scientific American offers information on science and access to experts in
many scientific fields
• The Texas Records and Information Locator (TRAIL), of the Texas State
Library, provides access to Texas state agencies and information sources.
• The U.S. Postal Service Rate Calculator enables you to calculate the postage
required on letters and packages, both domestically and internationally.
– WBDBs on zoology
• University of Michigan Zoology Museum; its name explains it
• World Lecture Hall—Zoology, UT-Austin provides links to lectures, pictures,
and divers sources of information on zoology
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions
WBDBs Used for Publishing (cont'd)
• Other kinds of WBDBs whose primary purpose can be
viewed as publishing (after finding) information include
search engines and online public-access catalogs
• Web-Search Engines maintain enormous DBs about the
contents of Websites. Some examples:
–
–
–
–
–
AltaVista Advanced Search
C'est Trouvé specializes in information in French
Google
InfoSpace offers directory information for people and businesses
InfoSel offers search capabilities and news about Mexico and other
parts of Latin America
– Northern Light
– Suchmaschine.com specializes in information in German
– Yahoo!
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions
WBDBs Used for Publishing (cont'd)
•
Many libraries provide online access to their holdings via online public-access
catalogs (OPACs). Clearly, OPACs are WBDBs. Some examples:
– The Austin Public Library Catalog
– The Catálogo de la Biblioteca Daniel Cosío Villegas of El Colegio de México
• Note: This appears to be inaccessible with Netscape; use Internet Explorer.
– The Catálogo de Recursos de Información del Centro de Información-Biblioteca
of the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM)
– The Catalogue BN-OPALE-PLUS of the Bibliothèque Nationale Française. (After
you reach the hyperlinked page, click on "Connexion au catalogue". You should
experiment with both the Recherche Simple and the Recherche Combinée.)
– The Catalogue of the National Library of Australia
– The Harvard OnLine Library Information System (HOLLIS) of Harvard University
– The Library of Congress Online Catalog
– The OPACs of the University of California, Berkeley (GLADIS) and the University
of California System (MELVYL) are both available via Library Online Catalog
Systems
– The UTNetCat of the UT-Austin General Libraries
•
I recommend that you visit all these online catalogs, do a search in each, and
compare the techniques that the catalogs offer and the results they yield. You
will find interesting similarities and interesting differences.
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions
WBDBs Used for Sharing Data
• Forums and Chat Rooms typify the WBDBs that are using for sharing
data and information (and often misinformation). These uses are
characterized by a two-way flow of information and data between the
user and the WBDB, with the user typically supplying a substantial part
of the flow. Some examples:
– CSICOP Chat Room, of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of
Claims of the Paranormal
– Edmunds.com Town Hall Community, "where smart car shoppers talk about
cars, trucks and related consumer issues" (the forum of Edmunds.com)
– Straight Dope Message Board, a forum for discussing topics related to Cecil
Adams's syndicated column, "The Straight Dope"
– Teens Chat and Hang-Out Home Page, a chat room for teenagers
– ThirdAge, a forum for seniors to "meet & talk"
– Upper Valley Materials Exchange, which "inks businesses and community
members who have surplus furniture, supplies, materials, equipment, etc.
with schools (and other non-profits) in the Upper [Connecticut] Valley that
have a use for them"
• And, of course, any of the 59,000+ Usenet Groups can be regarded as a
WBDB for sharing data (or at least opinions) and, lamentably often, for
solicitations from businesses and services, pornography, etc.
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions
WBDBs Used for E-Commerce
• As you are undoubtedly already aware, an enormous
number of Websites are devoted to commercial activities,
also characterized by a two-way flow of information and
data between the user and the WBDB, with the user
supplying only a limited part of the flow. As examples, we
can mention four Websites that deal with books, both new
and second-hand:
–
–
–
–
–
Alibris.com
Amazon.com
BarnesandNoble.com
Powells.com
Note: Each of the above sites is slightly different from the others.
You should compare each of them against the others with respect to
their design, organization, and means of obtaining information from
their users.
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions
WBDBs Used to Drive Websites
• Some WBDBs serve to keep Websites constantly up-to-date
with current information. A few examples:
– CNBC.com, financial news from National Broadcasting Company
– CNN.com, general news from Cable News Network (CNN)
– CNNFN.com, financial news from CNN
• Note: I recommend your comparing CNBC and CNNFN. Though they
target exactly the same audience, their designs and organization are
somewhat different.
– Greenwich provides the exact time (at the moment you open its
Webpage), along with information about time-keeping
– The current weather in any of 10,000 cities is available from CNN
Online: e.g., click here, Austin, for the weather in Austin
– Weather.com, the Web version of the Weather Channel on cable
television, provides a variety of weather information
• Note: Again I recommend your comparing CNN's and the Weather
Channel's displays of local weather information.
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions
Techniques for Developing and
Maintaining WBDBs
• The WBDBs discussed in the foregoing slides have
to be developed and maintained. The methods
involved in doing so can be highly technical, so we
shall merely sketch herein some general ideas about
these methods.
– Underlying all WBDBs is a relational databasemanagement system (RDBMS), together with one or more
relational databases (RDBs) that actually contain the data
or information of interest
– A Webpage defined in HTML or Dynamic HTML (DHTML)
controls the visual display that the user of the WBDB sees.
– An interface (1) receives information from the user and
passes it to the RDBMS, (2) extracts information from the
RDB (with the assistance of the RDBMS), and (3) provides
the information to the Webpage, whose HTML or DHTML
structure makes the information visible.
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions
Techniques for Developing and
Maintaining WBDBs (cont'd)
• RDBMSs used for WBDBs
– Although Microsoft Access 97 (and later versions)
offer built-in support for WBDBs, the limitations of
MS Access restrict it to Websites that experience
small levels of use (no more than a few
simultaneous users).
– Large and heavily used WBDBs typically use highlevel RDBMSs such as IBM DB2, Informix,
Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and Sybase. A
substantial majority of such sites use Oracle.
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions
Techniques for Developing and
Maintaining WBDBs (cont'd)
• The interfaces used for WBDBs fall into two
broad classes
– Interfaces intended for a specific application and
written in a scripting language that conforms to
Common Gateway Interface (GCI) standards
• A script is a set of programming-language statements,
typically (but not necessarily) short and used to
accomplish certain actions on the Internet
• Languages used in scripts include C, C++, Java, Perl,
and Visual Basic for Applications
– Interfaces developed commercially for a certain
class of applications
• Commercial interfaces include those of Oracle, SAP, and
Siebel.
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions
Techniques for Developing and
Maintaining WBDBs (cont'd)
• A popular tool for aiding in the development of CGI scripts
is ColdFusion.
– You can think of ColdFusion's role in working with CGI scripts as
analogous to that of Dreamweaver and Microsoft FrontPage in
aiding the preparation of HTML-formatted pages.
– P. Mohseni (1996, p. 238) describes ColdFusion as having the
capabilities to
• "Insert and update records in database tables with HTML forms
• "Submit database queries that can then be used to dynamically
generate Web pages
• "Intermix the results of queries with HTML tags and text for complete
control over how data is displayed and formatted
• "Track users and customize their view of Web pages by using
information about their browser, location, or other preferences
• "[Use a]dvanced data input and reporting features
• "Validate form field entries as integer, floating point, date or numeric
range
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions
Techniques for Developing and
Maintaining WBDBs (cont'd)
– ColdFusion capabilities (cont'd)
• "Make conditional statements (if . . . else branching) to
dynamically customize output returned to users and
decisions about queries submitted to the database
• "Embed SQL statements in templates to specify queries.
SQL statements may be dynamically customized using
data from from submissions, URL query strings, and CGI
environment variables, as well as the results returned
from other queries
• "Execute multiple SQL queries and send SQL queries to
multiple databases for each client request
• "Support Java and JavaScripts
• "Support Netscape cookies for state control"
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions
Electronic Customer Relationship
Management (eCRM)
• An example of the use of interface software tailored
for a class of applications is what is known as
"Electronic Customer Relationship Management"
(eCRM) software.
• J. Killelea (2001) describes the general nature of
eCRM as follows:
– "A database pulls together customer data—purchases,
demographics and preferences—from various sources, such
as websites, transaction systems and call centers.
– "Data is segmented according to set criteria—frequent
shoppers, attributes of shoppers, location of shoppers—and
personalized for products and services.
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions
Electronic Customer Relationship
Management (eCRM) (cont'd)
• The general nature of eCRM (cont'd)
"Based on personalized information, customers receive
promotional material—sales, new products and services—
via the website, email, snail mail or phone.
– "Customers respond to promotional offers by making a
purchase, inquiring about a product or seeking customer
service. This information is sent back to the database and
the process begins again."
• Vendors of eCRM software include Accrue Software,
Broadbase Software, E.piphany, and Informatica.
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions
Electronic Customer Relationship
Management (eCRM) (cont'd)
• B. B. Tulsi (2001) offers an interesting example of
how eCRM technology can work in medical practice.
– "E-health companies make it possible for doctors to write or
refill prescriptions in about 20 seconds using their cell
phones, PDAs [personal digital assistants] or dedicated
wireless devices. This not only saves time for the doctors
and pharmacists, it prevents miscommunications and avoids
mistakes.
– "[The d]octor uses his cell phone, PDA or dedicated
prescriber to look up information on a patient, enter his
diagnosis and make drug selections
– "The wireless device is linked to an onsite server
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions
Electronic Customer Relationship
Management (eCRM) (cont'd)
• eCRM technology in medical practice (cont'd)
– "The server connects to a database that tells which
medicines are allowed under the patient's insurance plan. It
will also indicate if the prescribed drug will cause a reaction
with any other medication the patient is currently taking.
– "Once everything checks out, the server faxes a prescription
to the patient's pharmacist, which might be a retail, mail
order or online outlet."
• Note: Currently eCRM software is much too
expensive for use in academic, public, or school
libraries. But as it decreases in price, interesting
possibilities will be opened for using such software in
libraries and other information agencies.
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions
Summary
• We have looked at Web-based databases and at how
they are used, developed, and maintained.
• It seems entirely safe to predict that
– WBDBs will become increasingly prevalent and increasingly
sophisticated in the ways they receive (and sometimes
extract, as with "cookies") information from users, as well as
in the ways in which they display information to users.
– Though the most sophisticated uses of WBDBs are currently
found in the commercial arena, such uses will spread
steadily into the non-profit and other less well financed
arenas.
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions
Web-Based Databases Cover the World
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions
References
• Antelman, Kristin. Getting Out of the HTML Business: The
Database-Driven Web Site Solution. Information Technology
and Libraries. 1999 December; 18(4): 176-181
• Feiler, Jesse. Database-Driven Web Sites. San Francisco,
CA: Morgan Kaufmann; 1999. ISBN:0-12-251336-3.
• Killelea, Jim. Electronic Salesmen Score More Sales Per
Customer. Technology Investor. 2001 January; 1(11):18-20
• Mohseni, Piroz. Web Database Primer Plus: Connect Your
Database to the World Wide Web Using HTML, CGI, and
Java. Corte Madera, CA: Waite Group; 1996. ISBN:157169-070-0
• Tulsi, Bernard B. E-health Whacks Waste Away—$600
Billion a Year. Technology Investor. 2001 January; 1(11):2225
School of Information - The University of Texas at Austin
LIS 386.13, Information Technologies & the Information Professions