Hi Ken,

If Wittenberg University were a Voyager ILS library, I would point you towards the (free, open-source) ShelfLister client [1].  Although not "ajaxy", one of the specific use cases is collection development/weeding projects and it meets many of your requirements:

 - current shelf-list
 - useful bibdata like title, pubinfo [...] total-checkouts
 - iPad/laptop-friendly
 - interface that will allow us to mark individual fields

Plus it has some nice extra features: The shelf list view allows the user to toggle between call numbers and titles.  The item view includes links to the OPAC, WorldCat, and Google Books.  The back-end is the actual underlying ILS database, so all the data (including item status) is real-time.

This doesn't help you (unless you want to try and port it to your ILS), but Voyager libraries might want to take a look.  Presentations given at the ELUNA conference last week provide an introduction to the current version of the client and show how to utilize the marked items file to bulk update the catalog (if desired) [2].

-- Michael

[1] http://rocky.uta.edu/doran/shelflister/

[2] http://rocky.uta.edu/doran/presentations/ShelfLister20intro.pptx
    http://rocky.uta.edu/doran/presentations/ShelfLister20markeditemsEluna.pptx

# Michael Doran, Systems Librarian
# University of Texas at Arlington
# 817-272-5326 office
# 817-688-1926 mobile
# [log in to unmask]
# http://rocky.uta.edu/doran/

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ken
> Irwin
> Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2011 8:07 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [CODE4LIB] ajaxy CRUD / weeding helper
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I'm about to embark upon a summer weeding project, and would like to do so
> with the help of a little web tool - perhaps one that you've already invented
> or for which a generic AJAX-based CRUD interface already exists. (Mostly I
> think I'm just looking for a low-power AJAX-based CRUD thing.) I'm going to
> describe what I want it to do, and perhaps you can tell me if you think
> someone has already done the heavy lifting on creating something like this.
> 
> Back end: a database containing the current shelf-list along with some useful
> bibdata like title, pubinfo, last-checkout-date, total-checkouts, date added
> to collection, plus some fields for the information we'll be inputing on the
> front end.
> 
> Front end: an iPad/laptop-friendly touch-or-click interface that will allow
> us to mark individual fields. Some of those would be multiple choice fields
> like "condition of the book". A free text note field. A few Booleans (e.g.
> "Someone says this books is a classic and we may never discard it.", "Listed
> in Best Books for Acad Lib", "I propose we weed this book")
> 
> The idea for this interface would be to allow the (de)selector to make notes
> on each title as s/he goes down the shelf. The selector would be able to
> easily see bib data and would be able to change the data as the process goes
> on. I'd prefer to do this on an AJAX model so the database is updated in real
> time rather than relying on more overt form submission.
> 
> I described this as a CRUD (Create, Replace, Update, Delete) thing, but I
> guess it's really just "U" - updating.
> 
> Do you have a nice easy tool for doing AJAX-y db updating from a UI that
> would allow for the various types of input (pulldowns, Boolean, text fields).
> Preferably, I'd like to be able to do some visual renderings of some of the
> data to match our in-house "sticker" system - yellow dots for "we might weed
> this", green for "we gotta keep this".
> 
> Any ideas? I would love to not re-invent this wheel.
> 
> Thanks!
> Ken