InfoBase+: Distributing Objects Over Large Networks

Volker-H. Winterer
Freiburg University, Germany

Abstract

We have developed a library system in cooperation with our University Library, which allows us to provide all literature and knowledge databases via Web, including databases implemented for the Windows plattform and those using a Windows client, such as Beilstein.

The system, called InfoBase+, is in service since Nov. 1997 and is currently used by approx. 14000 users at Freiburg University.

Furthermore, it is already in use at several other universities and, among others, in the worldwide intranet of the pharmacological company L. Hoffmann-La Roche located in Basle, Switzerland. Our system is an obj.-oriented, client-server system implemented in Java.

In the ReDI-Project, a collaboration of the Computing Centers and University Libraries of Freiburg and Stuttgart University, we are currently extending our InfoBase+ system to provide database access across the entire State Baden-Wuerttemberg (9 universities, 2 state libraries, 27 technical/pedagogical schools, several hundred thousand users).

Bio

Dr. Volker-H. Winterer is head of the Systems and Operations Division at the Computing Center, Freiburg University. Furthermore, he is chief technologist in the ReDI-Project (see above). He received his diploma and his Ph.D. in High Energy Physics/Computational Physics from Freiburg University. Previously, he had been working for the OPAL-Collaboration at Freiburg University and at CERN, Geneva (Switzerland) for ten years. He is interested in all aspects of networked computing, in Computational Physics and simulation.