RESOURCE CENTRE MANUAL
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Searching Inmagic has the facility for both simple and expert searching (see table
at the end of this section).
Flexibilty Inmagic is very flexible, both in relation to the initial design process,
and in making alterations. It is easy to add and remove both fields and indexes,
with these changes taking effect across the database. It is also straightforward to
change field names and record structures.
How easy to set up and develop Databases can be designed and managed in
Inmagic without technical computer knowledge, although technical support is
useful if resource centre staff are not very familiar with computers or databases.
Inmagic can use either name-based or numeric field tags, and can replace these
with different field labels as required. It is the most flexible of the programs in
this respect. Name-based field tags make it more user-friendly when designing a
database, and number-based field tags are useful if wanting to use standard
bibliographic database formats, although the lack of a subfield function means
that it cannot be fully compatible with standard formats.
Data entry assistance Inmagic provides all the data entry assistance functions
described in Section 6.8.5 (see table at end of this section).
Indexes (inverted files) Inmagic can index fields by word or term (whole fields),
and can use more than one type of indexing for any field at the same time (such
as word and term), enabling index terms to be viewed as both individual words
and phrases. Inmagic has individual indexes for each field, although these can
easily be searched as multiple indexes.
Sorting Complex options for sorting are available, including sorting a record by
an alternative field when a particular sort field is missing, such as sorting by title
when there is no author.
Display, print and download formats DBTextworks uses simple ‘box placing’
(placing field ‘boxes’ in the required layout) or ‘drag and drop’ (using the cursor
to drag and place field boxes in the required layout) to set up formats for
displaying, printing and downloading (writing to file). Text, images, punctuation
and formatting can be added to all of these, and reports can be saved as rich text
format (RTF) and in hypertext mark-up language (HTML) for placing records as
text on a website. Added text can be set to appear only if the field contains data.
It is also possible to include ‘sort’ and ‘report’ headers and footers to develop
more creative formats. These make it very useful for producing resource lists and
directories. Label printing functions are available and mail merge can be done
relatively easily, either by exporting records or creating a report format.
DBTextworks records can include links to documents and graphics files and
website addresses. Facilities are built in to display graphics and to open listed
documents and websites.
52 SECTION 6: COMPUTERS, ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION AND DATABASES