The Minaret collections management system has been completely rewritten to support some of the most important technologies to emerge in recent years. They include the World Wide Web, Unicode and XML. New features of this release also include keyword searching (with phrase and proximity support) and the ability to read MARC 21 records with Unicode content and data from any of the MARC 21 code tables (i.e. Arabic, Asian, Cyrillic, Greek and Hebrew).

The World Wide Web

This version of Minaret is server based. You can access Minaret from anywhere in the world, using any brand of computer, provided you have an Internet connection and a standard Web browser. This means:

1. You do not have to install Minaret on your computer(s).
2. You do not have to install upgrades.
3. There is no delay in receiving fixes and upgrades to the software because they become available as soon as they are installed on the server.
4. You can manage your data from anywhere in the world.
5. Your catalogs will be available on the Internet with full searching capabilities.

Discover the benefits of using software you don't have to install or maintain, just use. The time and money savings from this approach are substantial.

For smaller institutions in particular, it means getting sophisticated client / server computing and an Internet presence with very little effort and without an IT (Information Technology) department or computer consultants. Even if have access to an IT department, Minaret will free you from being someone else's low priority.

Unicode

With built in support for Unicode characters, Minaret can now process and display all of the languages of the world. In addition, there is extensive support for local conventions for sorting and displaying data.

XML

XML is a data interchange standard that has quickly become the lingua franca of the computer world. Minaret was originally designed to support MARC data with its repeating fields and subfields. Adding XML support meant extending this concept to sub-subfields and beyond. Currently, your cataloging data must be available in the MARC format to create databases on this site. This will change in the future so that other types of information can be accommodated -- like Encoded Archival Description (EAD) and generic XML data.

An XML export facility will be added to this site shortly that will allow you to export your cataloging records in XML. You will then be able to manipulate and transform this data using standard XML tools, including word processors.

Additional Features
New features of Minaret 3 include support for:

• Unlimited index key lengths.
• MARC non-filing indicators.
• MARC non-sort begin and end.
• MARC 21 bibliographic format through Update No. 5 (October 2004).
• Time span values that permit searches for ranges of dates.

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