RESOURCE CENTRE MANUAL
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Cost factors Remember that the total cost of a program includes training,
technical support, and time for staff to familiarise themselves with the program,
as well as the price of the software. DBTextworks is user-friendly and has an
excellent manual, so only a few days training is needed in the use of the program.
However, general computer skills are important, as is an understanding of
databases, how they work and what they can be used for.
6.10.2 Idealist
Idealist is an example of a program that was originally intended for personal use,
but is very suitable for small resource centres. Other examples are Reference
Manager and Procite, which have several pre-defined database structures and
print formats, but not all the functions listed in Section 6.8.5.
Idealist can do most things required by a small resource centre, or a large
resource centre that mainly requires a catalogue database. It is not so useful for
producing printed materials such as resource lists. However it is inexpensive and
easy to use.
Program suitability Idealist is designed for use with bibliographic, as well as
other textual and numeric data. Calculation functions are limited to within
records, and are not very easy to use.
Repeatable fields and variable length fields Idealist has variable length fields and
the ability to repeat fields.
Searching Idealist has the facility for both simple and expert searching (see the
table at the end of this section).
Flexibility Idealist is flexible, both in relation to the initial design process, and in
making later 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 Bibliographic databases can be designed and
managed in Idealist without technical computer knowledge, although technical
support is useful if resource centre staff are not very familiar with computers or
databases.
Idealist uses name-based field tags, which makes it user-friendly when designing
databases.
54 SECTION 6: COMPUTERS, ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION AND DATABASES