8th Annual ICAU Meeting Aalborg University, Denmark 8.-10- September 1997

ALEPH 500 Documentation

By Barbara Rad-El

ALEPH 500 documentation includes the following components:

1. Interactive On-line Help for GUI Interface

Help Magician Pro is used to create interactive on-line help for each module below:

• OPAC
• Catalog
• Users
• Items
• Circulation
• Acquisitions
• Cash Management
• Inter-library Loan
• Administration
• Task Management

This on-line help is accessible to the user in the following ways:

• From every menu choice - the user presses F1 to receive help about the currently highlighted menu choice.

• From every window - the user clicks the Help button to receive help that explains the purpose of the current window and guides him through the necessary interactions with the window.

• From a table of contents - a list of help topics, similar to a contents page in a printed manual, is provided. The user may click on any hyperlinked topic to read the explanation. Examples of the table of contents and an associated help topic are provided below.

• Hyperlinks - certain text within a help screen may be highlighted, signaling to the user that he may click on the text to jump to related help screens.

• Keyword searching - the user may type a keyword and see the list of help topics associated with that keyword. The user may then choose the help topic of interest. The ability to do keyword searching will be provided for selected modules whose functionality requires this additional feature. An example of the keyword function is provided below.

Following are examples of help screens for the GUI interface:

Following is an example of the keyword search function:

2. On-line Help for Web Interface

On-line help accompanies the following modules available on the Web:

• OPAC
• Batch Functions
• Database Tables

Help text is written on each screen, explaining the purpose of the screen and guiding the user through his interactions with the screen.

Following are examples of on-line help for the Web interface:

An OPAC function:

A BATCH function:

3. Interactive On-line Guide to Table Management

An interactive on-line guide, accessible from the Web, walks the user step-by-step through the process of managing the tables that define the system’s functionality. Such an interactive guide provides a high level of usability unattainable by traditional printed documents.

An example from such a guide is shown below. Note that the underlined text is hypertext. For example, in Step 3 of the example, the user can click on the link and go directly to the table to be filled in.

4. Installation Guide

A guide for step-by-step instructions for installing the system are provided.

5. Server Guide

A guide to the architecture and directory structure of the system is available.

6. Client Guide

A guide is available to the setup and maintenance of the ALEPH 500 Clients.

7. Training Guides

Training materilas that highlight and summarize the functionality of the system, are provided.

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