DBMs and Web Delivery

Presenter: Eric Lease Morgan, North Carolina State University Libraries

This presentation compares and contrasts three database applications and describes how their content can be made available on the Web. Filemaker Pro is a cross-platform application including a built-in HTTP server. Combined with its extended markup language, Filemaker represents a quick and easy solution to many database needs. Microsoft Access is a more popular application employing SQL and ODBC facilitating greater scalablility at the expense of learning ASP or the implementation of something like Cold Fusion as a means for Web distribution. MySQL, an open-source database application running under Unix is widely supported by the Internet community and is tightly integrated with the Perl programing language. Combined with HTTP servers like Apache, MySQL can meet just about any database requirement at the cost of a minimalistic user interface. The creation and maintenance of database applications are essential to the work of libraries in the 21st century. This presentation describes how you can put this technology to use with currently available and inexpensive tools such as Filemaker Pro, Microsoft Access, or MySQL.