Biblioscape database is fast and robust. It is designed to be used by a single user or a group of users with no extra setup needed. With the same installation, you can open a database residing on your local drive, on a file server drive on your local network, or on a remote machine with BiblioRemote server running.
Setting up Biblioscape for group use is very easy. You just need to put the shared database folder on the file server of your Local Area Network (LAN). Everybody on your LAN can then open that shared database as if it is on their local drive. No configuration change is needed at all. When placed on a network common drive, the Biblioscape database can be opened by Biblioscape from multiple computers at the same time. The database table is locked at record level. Multiple Biblioscape users can read and write to the tables at the same time. Alternatively, if you don't want individual user customization, you can simply install one copy of Biblioscape on the shared drive, and allow all users to run Biblioscape from the shared drive. In this way, you only need to do the installation once on the file server. But each user needs to be licensed.
For organizations with Biblioscape users at different locations, it is still possible to share the same database with the desktop version of Biblioscape. Biblioscape comes with a database server called BiblioRemote. With the BiblioRemote server running, Biblioscape can open the database residing on the server machine from any computer in the world through the Internet. This makes it possible for remote users to share the same database, and have all the features in Biblioscape still available. The alternative is to use the BiblioWeb server, which allows remote users to share the same database with a much simpler Web interface.
When Biblioscape is installed, it comes with a sample database to get you started. You can use the sample database to learn how to use Biblioscape. When you are ready, you can create a new blank database to work on your own data.
Biblioscape database is not a single file database. Many database table files are created under the database folder. You should treat all the tables as a whole. You cannot move individual table files between different databases. When a new database is created, Biblioscape creates two sub-folders under the database folder.
Note: When you create a new database for personal use, you should put it on your local drive. In a work place, your computer is likely to be on a Local Area Network. You may have several drive letters mapped to network file server. If you put Biblioscape on a network drive, the performance will be degraded significantly when your database becomes large. So make sure your database files are on the drive of your own computer. "C" drive is the local drive by default. If your hard disk is partitioned into more than one partitions, you will have more than one local drive.
You should backup all files under your database folder regularly. Each Biblioscape database have files under its own folder. For example, the "Sample" database that comes with Biblioscape installation have all its files under the "Sample" folder below Biblioscape installation folder. The best way to backup a Biblioscape database is to zip all files under your database folder. After compression by zip software (like WinZip), the file size can be 10-20% of its original size. You can find many free compression (zip) software for Windows on the Web.
If you have a database that is no longer needed, you can delete it by deleting the database folder using the file manager. Make sure the database is not currently opened by Biblioscape. Biblioscape will automatically open the last opened database at the startup. If the last opened database is deleted or moved, the template database will be opened instead. You can then go to "File | Database | Open Database" to open another Biblioscape database.
Biblioscape database can be renamed. For example, if you added some records into the Biblioscape sample database and want to keep using it, you can change its name easily by the following steps.
ODBC stands for Open DataBase Connectivity. ODBC provides a standardized set of rules for getting information to and from a database. An ODBC driver is a software interface that accepts ODBC standard queries and then passes them through to the specific application, modifying where necessary to account for application specific database structure and format. The functions of a driver are invisible to users and third party applications. From a third party perspective, a standardized ODBC query or update is presented to the database, and a standardized ODBC response is returned.
Many software applications (such as Biblioscape) use databases to store and retrieve information. The database design is often specific to the application associated with the database. Before the introduction of ODBC, important information might only be accessible through one application, or via export solutions. The immediate benefit of ODBC is that those applications that support the ODBC standards can access Biblioscape directly through ODBC. They can search and read the data in Biblioscape, even update records in Biblioscape without starting Biblioscape. With the ODBC driver, you can make Biblioscape database part of a bigger solution in your organization.
The Biblioscape ODBC driver is an ODBC 3 driver and we've used it successfully with MDAC 2.7 and the following applications:
Crystal Reports 8.5
MS Query (and subsequently mail-merge in Word and external data in Excel) (Office 2000)
MS Access 2000
MS Visio 2000
BDE 5.01
ODBCExpress 5.06/7 (Delphi 5)
ADOExpress (Delphi 5 with update packs)
IIS5 ASP scripts
Visual Basic 6
Visual Studio .NET
The driver can completely handle all updating of data via SQL statements and the SQLExecute or SQLExecDirect calls, including BLOB data. Parameters are also completely supported, including BLOB parameters.
The driver provides scrollable cursor support via SQLFetchScroll and SQLExtendedFetch. The only two types of scrollable cursors supported are Static and Dynamic. Keyset-Driven cursors are not supported.
The driver cannot performe positioned updates using the SQL syntax WHERE CURRENT OF and using the SQLSetCursorName and SQLGetCursorName calls. This functionality is not supported in the database engine.
Even though the driver supports parameter arrays, you still cannot request multiple result sets with the SQLMoreResults call. This is not supported in the database engine. You will, however, be able to execute multiple INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE statements.
You can purchase the ODBC driver for $49. Click here to purchase it online. A separate help file is included in the ODBC installation.