The Search and Delivery System
This particular system for the delivery of information from archival finding aids is composed of the following pieces:
- An HTML interface utilizing that encoding standard's forms capabilities that permits users to submit simple or boolean search queries.
- Middleware perl scripts that utilize an HTTP server's Common Gateway Interface (CGI) capability in order to conduct transactions between the interface and the search engine and also conduct intermediate transactions with the search engine while the query is being processed.
- DLXS search engine.
- HTML templates, CSS stylesheet, and scripts for conversion and display
- A server containing EAD-encoded archival finding aids.
When finding aids are created as .xml files from xml authoring software and uploaded to the server and indexed, they are ready to go. No further associated files or manipulations are required.
This is not a simple query and response between the HTML interface and the xml-aware search engine. The middleware perl scripts conduct necessary transactions refining query results before those results are transformed on-the-fly to HTML for delivery to the end user. Several HTML templates and CSS stylesheets control the display of the finding aids.
A graphical representation of the system
Three documents are available online that outline the basis for the approach to delivery of SGML-based resources via the Web underway at the University of Michigan. The first two are authored by John Price-Wilkin, the last by Chris Powell and Nigel Kerr.