This is Part III of an essay about my water collection, specifically a summary, opportunities for future study, and links to the source code. Part I described the collection’s whys and hows. Part II described the process of putting it on the Web.
Summary, future possibilities, and source code
There is no doubt about it. My water collection is eccentric but through my life time I have encountered four other people who also collect water. At least I am not alone.
Putting the collection on the Web is a great study in current technology. It includes relational database design. Doing input/output against the database through a programming language. Exploiting the “extensible” in XML by creating my own mark-up language. Using XSLT to transform the XML for various purposes: display as well as simple transformation. Literally putting the water collection on the map. Undoubtably technology will change, but the technology of my water collection is a representative reflection of the current use of computers to make things available on the Web.
I have made all the software a part of this system available here:
- SQL file sans any data – good for study of simple relational database
- SQL file complete with data – see how image data is saved in the database
- PHP scripts – used to do input/output against the database
- waters.xml – a database dump, sans images, in the form of an XML file
- waters.xsl – the XSLT used to display the browser interface
- waters2markers.xsl – transform water.xml into Google Maps XML file
- map.pl – implementation of Google Maps API
My water also embodies characteristics of librarianship. Collection. Acquisition. Preservation. Organization. Dissemination. The only difference is that the content is not bibliographic in nature.
There are many ways access to the collection could be improved. It would be nice to sort by date. It would be nice to index the content and make the collection searchable. I have given thought to transforming the WaterML into FO (Formatting Objects) and feeding the FO to a PDF processor like FOP. This could give me a printed version of the collection complete with high resolution images. I could transform the WaterML into an XML file usable by Google Earth providing another way to view the collection. All of these things are “left up the reader for further study”. Software is never done, nor are library collections.
 River Lune |
 Roman Bath |
 Ogle Lake |
Finally, again, why do I do this? Why do I collect the water? Why have a spent so much time creating a system for providing access to the collection? Ironically, I am unable to answer succinctly. It has something to do with creativity. It has something to do with “arsience“. It has something to do with my passion for the library profession and my ability to manifest it through computers. It has something to do with the medium of my art. It has something to do with my desire to share and expand the sphere of knowledge. “Idea. To be an idea. To be an idea and an example to others… Idea”. I really don’t understand it through and through.
Read all the posts in this series:
Visit the water collection.
Tags: water