Te Reo catalogue made easy: Hamilton City Libraries

Smita Biswas & Whetu Marama Te Ua

Using just own content management system - dreamweaver etc.
Inspred by PutMohio - wanted to create same thing with minimum cost. Putumohio worked with Millennium but they couldn't afford this or work with vendor.
Got editable OPAC templates working as skins to pull catalogue database through so didn't need to be hard coded of library management sstem and can be readily updated in future. Only needed $600 for templates.

Main goal to use simple sentence structure. Used Williams dictionary.

Macrons wouldn't stick in the templates. Came up with dual opac templates.

Macrons but when saved just got squares - font doesn't support it. Changed to Arial.
But Hamilton city kaumatua say they don't use macrons - use double vowel.

Concept of iframes - inline frame - html element allows embedding another html page so two pages can be run at once..
Reduces need to reload entire page
Gave appearance of staying within website. Retain look and feel. Also pulls catalogue database from behind firewall.

If have database and webpage on server can avoid using iframes.

Iframes cause problems for older browsers

Questions
Have had good feedback (other than spelling! re macrons). Some tutors um and ah about macrons but mostly just glad something's up in Maori.

Impact on council - first thing done in te reo so good for council. Has helped look at how to improve things for Maori in Hamilton - first time Council have had Maori issues on agenda.