First of all, I'm not at the BFI any longer, I'm at the BUFVC, so I can't
speak about the development of the BFI National Library database. However,
from a user's point of view, I find it an excellent resource, and I am
puzzled by the problems that you list, as none had affected me - there is a
Help page, the name search tells you the number of hits and gives you every
title, with links to the full record, and I'm not sure what you mean by film
titles as it is a book library catalogue. It is a considerable improvement
on the rather mystifying interface for the same database available in the
BFI reading room, and the BFI is rightly proud of it.
Luke
************************************************
Luke McKernan
Head of Information
British Universities Film & Video Council
77 Wells Street
London W1T 3QJ
Tel: 020 7393 1508
Fax: 020 7393 1555
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Crispin Partridge" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2001 3:31 PM
Subject: Re: BFI Library browser Newsletter ...
On Wed, 19 Sep 2001 11:48:32 +0100 Matt Holland
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 3) I also note from the a quick visit to the BFI website that their OPAC
is
> now online [http://www.bfi.org.uk/nationallibrary/olib/index.html] its
> tagged as NEW so I am not sure when this happened [rather embarrassingly
its
> launch missed me],
You are not the only one. I missed this as well, just too late
for our printed resource guides.
however, of great benefit to students, staff and
> researchers.
Well - I found some quirks when I had [admittedly a quick] go
with it. For instance:
1. A help page that goes nowhere.
2. Name search tells you that it has found x hits, but you cannot
display them.
3. Film titles are displayed as text but without any explanation
or links attached. It is not clear what they are there for.
There may be additional peculiarities which others have
discovered.
I am using NetscapeŽ Communicator 4.75, so it could be a browser
problem, but most of the catalogue works so I assume that my
browser is blameless.
Maybe Luke from the BFI could enlighten us on whether it is still
at Beta testing stage and what is happening generally with it.
----------------------
Crispin Partridge
Humanities and Education Faculty Librarian
The Learning Centre
University of North London
236-250 Holloway Road
London N7 6PP
Tel. 020 7973 4894
Email: [log in to unmask]
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