TEIRESIÁS: 
Portal of University Libraries for visually impaired
Site Content
Aim and Purpose of the Application
The portal of university libraries for the blind (www.teiresias.muni.cz/portal) is the Internet interface that has been developed in cooperation with partner stations (Charles University Computer Centre, Tereza Centre at CVUT in Prague). This interface allows browsing the libraries' catalogues using the Z.39.50 protocol. Its primary task is to ensure that academic (and prospectively non-academic) libraries meant for the blind are accessible through one Internet interface and thus the need to browse in various interfaces and to use various tools for one type of activity will be eliminated. The formal design of the interface conforms to the target group. The design follows Rules for Web Accessibility (www.pravidla-pristupnosti.cz). This interface can be secondarily used by any user to search in other libraries that make their catalogue accessible with protocol Z.39.50 and that are currently part of the application Portal (see below).
Hierarchical Structure of Application
The interface is divided into 3 levels.
- First level – Search form
- Second level – Results of the search – the results will show brief information on records that correspond to the query made
- Third level – detailed information on particular library records from the particular library's catalogue
By sending the query you will be redirected from the first level to the second. You can change by links between the two remaining levels as always at the end of the page there is a backward link to higher levels. This means that at the page Detailed Information you will find the following links:
- Back to the previous page with the found results – i.e. Results of the search
- Back to the form – i.e. back to the pre-filled search form
- Back to the empty form – i.e. back to the new search form
on the page Results of the search you will find these links:
- back to the form
- back to an empty form
First level of the interface – Search form
This form contains the following tools:
1. For the description of the unit searched:
- four pull-down lists- two blocks for writing
2. For database choice
- checkable box with the choice: consider – do not consider (i.e. check the box – do not check the box).
3. For formal form of the query (number of units per page)
- one pull-down list
While searching you can take into consideration and combine the following conditions:
- type of document (1st pull-down list): (any (implicitly set), electronic, haptic, sound, printed
- item I of the library record (2nd pull-down list): the author, title (implicitly set figure), subject password – then comes an empty block for writing
- item II of the library record (4th pull-down list): author (implicitly set figure), title, subject password – then comes a block for writing;
Requirements I and II can be combined using the logical operators (3rd pull-down list) "at the same time", "or", "but it is not true that". At the same time it is true that only one item is obligatory and the second is optional (only for specification of the query) – in that case the type of the logical operator is not taken into consideration.
Syntax of the whole query is as follows:
"Search records about documents of the type (1st list) where in the unit (2nd list) is stated (1st block for writing) and at the same time it is true /or/ it is not true that (3rd list) in the record (4th list) is stated (2nd block for writing)."
Filling in the editable fields
- it is possible to fill in any word or word groups from the title, author's name or subject password; it is not possible to search using only parts of the words
- it is possible to fill in the name of the author in the natural word order (Josef Novak) as well as in the inverted word order (Novak Josef); the same is valid for filling in the subject words (special education as well as education special)
- if you write more words in one field they are implicitly connected by the conjunction AND and the words do not have to be next to each other, they do not have to be from the beginning of the field (which is being searched), but they might be in any part of the field
- a combination with another editable field (see above) enables a different logical connection of more words
Choice of the database
Using the checkable boxes you can access the option from the following list of catalogues of the participating libraries:
- Masaryk University Library for the Blind
- Library of the Tereza Center at CVUT, Prague
- Charles University in Prague Collected Catalogue
- Masaryk University Collected Catalogue
- Catalogue of the University Library at University in Hradec Kralove (a part of it is the digital library of Tyflopedic cabinet)
Implicitly the first two libraries are set as active. Each checkable box has been assigned a keyboard abbreviation (hotkey) successively Alt+1, Alt+2 etc. The name of the library in the list serves as well as a hyperlink to the catalogue or the webpage of the library.
Choice of the form of the search results – setting the number of items per page. The pull-down list (keyboard abbreviation Alt+P) allows you to choose from 10, 20 and 50 items; implicitly 10 has been set.
The search is sent by pressing the Search (Hledat) button (hotkey Alt+H)
Second level of the interface – Search results
The result of the search is a numbered list of basic data about the items found in catalogues of the selected libraries. The list can have 500 items at the most, if this limit is exceeded it is necessary to narrow down the search.
Each item of the list contains the following data:
- order number of the item found
- document title,
- document type,
- author,
- publication year,
- and name of the library where the document is located
The order number is defined as a second level headline which can be used by screen-readers or better orientation. If the list of the results is more than one page long according to the number of items per page chosen in the search form, then the following (or previous) page is accessible with a link at the end of the page (Previous entries – Předchozí záznamy; Next entries – Další záznamy). Both links are assigned shortcuts Alt+K, resp. Alt+L.
Third level of the interface – Detailed information on a record
The detailed information has a structure of a bibliographic record. Potentially the following data is available
- title,
- author,
- order and place of publication, publisher, year of publishing
- bibliographic data of the original (model)
- extent, series, notes, ISBN
- and information on the electronic document placement This field introduced by the phrase "Available from:" has been filled in for documents that are electronically accessible and they contain a hyperlink leading directly to the electronic document to the relevant digital library. You are allowed to download the document after a successful user authorisation.
Bibliographic data Most of the collections of libraries for the blind are formed by publications made according to the printed original that was transferred into a form accessible for a user with visual impairment. These are not mere copies of the originals but considering the number of modifications (firstly the form of document changes from printed into haptic, electronic or audial), and adaptations (graphical part...) that the documents undergo, the documents have to be understood as newly published works. This is true not only for publications in haptic print but also for electronic documents accessible from the Internet because they are considered to be newly published as well. For this reason, we consider the publisher of this kind of publication the one who created the document according to the original. For the publication data you will then not see the publisher of the original but the one who created the version for readers with visual impairment. However, the link to the original publisher and other data about the original are not lost. This information is to be found in the field Notes about the original (Poznámka o originálu) where such bibliographic data appear that will allow you to identify the original. The field Notes about the original is included in Detailed information about the item.
The above mentioned principle should be asserted while quoting these documents – bibliographic quotation has to be created on the basis of the document that the reader really has at his/her disposal (e.g. adapted document). The citation for the document should be from the modified publication and not from the printed original. Information on the original will appear at the end of the quotation in a note.
Example of a quotation:
BARTONĚK, A. Latina pro posluchače FF. [online]. Brno: Masarykova univerzita v Brně, [2005]. [cit. 8. února 2005]. Autorizovaným přístupem dostupné na: http://www.teiresias.muni.cz/knihovna/barlati.exe. (Podle vydání: Brno: MU v Brně 1996).
Last updated: 29. 9. 2008
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