The new version WIBS is still being documented but you can get a development release here. You can get more information by contacting me directly. Some information can be seen in the roadmap, see this version in OpenOffice format and this one (sans pictures) in the default HTML format. If you are using Linux, OS/X, and/or use PAM for authentication, we have a module that we would love to talk to you about.

Some of the building blocks for the new version of WIBS are available on their own here at SourceForge. These may be of use to libraries outside of booking workstations. One is an iCalendar generator and the other is a 3M SIP (Standard Interface Protocol) transformer. These have been designed to work in Cocoon and the Readme.txt file in each distribution provides more background information. The distributions can be seen here.

You can see a demo here of the booking interface, and the admin interface can be viewed here. If you use Mozilla Calendar, you can track (and change) bookings of the demo system using the iCal feed in the admin interface. The following information is still accurate but this version will continue to use a browser-based layer after the pGINA authentication described below is cleared. The Visual Basic application for this will be done at a later time. The booking screen for WIBS is as follows:

One of the issues we had in the past with WIBS is that the display of stations gets overwhelming when you pass a certain threshold. Our experience is that patrons usually have preferences for what floor they are on, but the particular station is much less of an issue. The booking interface uses cforms (formerly know as Woody), which has a number of advantages, not the least of which is that you can easily modify the defaults. Woody has a lot of functionality for custom validation, you can look for patterns in input data for example, and you can set in the configuration files what fields need to be filled out. You can see below what happens when the form is submitted without the required fields:

Where Woody shines is with repeatable rows in tables. If your library has differences in hardware and software available on bookable stations, this functionality can be very handy for specifying combinations. The default is given below:

For example, a patron who needs to use a CD burner, GIS software, and Maple:

We have added an iCalendar layer in order to work with general purpose calendar systems like Mozilla. This is used for getting a visual of how many stations are used at any one time, and for group bookings. As well, WIBS includes:

• A windows desktop client layer using a pGina plug-in written in C++. This greatly simplifies the installation on client stations and is a much more robust security layer that uses Window's GINA interface.
• Client stations communicate with the server side of WIBS via SOAP, so any platform, in theory, should be able to be used if the client pieces are written. We are supplying a windows and also a PAM-based implementation
• Bookings can be e-mailed and also downloaded in iCalendar format.
• Desktop application written that enforce time limits and can remotely shut down a station.
• Dynamic maps are available in SVG to show a patron where the booked machine is located, and for graphics of workstation utilization for quick viewing by library staff.
• Reports are available both directly from the underlying database, visually through any iCalendar client, and as spreadsheets using Cocoon's implementation of POI.
• Some LDAP support, including LDAP over SSL.
• Support for SQL-based authentication as well as database connection pooling.
• Cocoon's stylesheet model combinated with a special web transformer should be able to map almost any combination of web sequences to authenticate against a library's webcat if other methods are not an option.

Sound promising? Want to help? Let us know. If you can handle weak documentation, we can set you up with a distribution. Please supply details on options you have for authentication in your system. It is possible to set up a general purpose LDAP server if you have no external source of authentication.

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