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As the union catalog and locus of access to more than 35 indexing and abstracting databases for the University of California, the MELVYL System is large, complex and heavily used. Designing a MELVYL Web interface presents numerous conceptual, design and technical challenges. The MELVYL Web Interface Design Team, a cooperative effort between UC libraries and the Library Automation unit in the UC Office of the President, is contending with these challenges. In addition to preserving the rich functionality of the current MELVYL System, the Design Team is striving to take advantage of the Web to promote a learning environment, and to add opportunities for users to customize their interaction with the system. This panel presentation will examine the process for addressing these issues in a multi-campus environment, discuss the major design objectives, explore some of the limitations of the web environment for providing access to a complex system, and present a demonstration of the interface as a work in progress.
Background documents of interest include the following:
Objectives for the MELVYL Web Interface
{ftp://dla.ucop.edu/pub/melvyl/melvylweb/interface.txt}
Project Plan for the Prototype Web Interface to the MELVYL System
{ftp://dla.ucop.edu/pub/melvyl/melvylweb/project.txt}
Functional Overview of the Proposed MELVYL WEB interface
{ftp://dla.ucop.edu/pub/melvyl/melvylweb/overview.txt}