Screenshots for the PFA data entry software (Xdb)
Splash screen showing four pull down menus. Each menu item opens a data entry screen. Xdb does not support entry into mutiple tables, so a screen generally represents a base table.
The first three menus represent the three entities that comprise the PFA data model. Xdb does not support multi-value entries (one-to-mane or many-to-many), so repeating fields must be entered on separate screens. Items (screens) within a menu collectively represent the logical entity record. The fourth menu contains entry screens for utility tables and controlled vocabularies.
Films
Film record:
Entry fields with the small up/down arrows are repeating.
Fields with red labels are required, fields with purple labels are read only.
The Article field is for leading (non-collating) definite or indefinite articles which are selected from a vocabulary table.
Original Title is the preferred title. There is also an English Title, which is used when the original title is not in English. If given, the English Title is also entered into the Alternate Titles table.
Alternate Film Titles
Alt. Titles:
For adding one or more alternate titles for a film.
The Preferred Title on this screen contains useful disambiguation information (director, place, year) which is computed, not part of the actual title field in the film record.
Film Directors
Film Directors:
Director/film realtionships are entered here. The director's names are pulled from the Names table. The director can also be a “committee”, pulled from the Committee table.
Committees are a convenient way to include mutilple director names, but they are only used when there is a formal relationship between the various directors – e.g when they have formed a production
Film Release Years
FilmYears:
Film Documents
Film Documents:
A repeating field, titles of documents related to a film. As usual, the red labels indicate that the field is required, and the purple labels indicate that the field is read-only.
The next two screenshots show how the values in the required fields are selected from a pick list. The pick list can be narrrowed by entering some initial characters. The contents of the Film and Document
Film Languages
Film Languages:
Entry form for associating multiple languages with a given film.
The film title is a calculated string from the film table, the language is the display value from the
Film Countries
Film Countries:
Entry form for associating multiple countries with a given film.
The film title is a calculated string from the film table, the country is the display value from the
Film Genres
Film Genres:
Entry form for associating multiple genres with a given film.
The film title is a calculated string from the film table, the genre is the display value from the genres
Film Subjects
Film Subjects:
Entry form for associating multiple subjects with a given film.
Film Production Companies
Film Production Companies (prodcos):
Entry form from associating one or more production companies with a given film.
The production company names are take from the names table. In the PFA database both personal and corporate (but not committee) names are stored in a common “names” table.
Film Themes
Film Themes:
Theme labels attached to a given film.
The themes are from the themes table, which contains both themes and related sub-themes. This was implemented for a pedagogy project in which films would be grouped by “theme” for use in film classes. A project which – due to budget cuts with staff layoff – has not progressed noticeably.
Themes
Themes:
An entry form for the themes table (see above), which would contain theme terms to be reference in the
Film Data Entry
Film Data Entry:
This screen represents a complete logical film record, a kluge to facilitate data entry into multiple tables from a single screen. Data entered from this screen is inserted into a dummy table with an insert trigger that pushes the inserted row out to a number of “real” tables, after which the dummy table is truncated.
Persons
Persons:
an entry form for adding personal names to the names table. The names table contains both individual personal names and corporate names.
These names are used for authors, directors, producers, name subjects - i.e. names entered as subjects of documents or documentaries. They are also used for members of “committees”.
Alternate Person Names
Alt. Person Names:
An entry from for adding alternate personal names – pseudonyms, alternate spellings, spellings with or without non-ascii characters, etc.
Corporate Names
Corporate Names:
Alternate Corporate Names
Alt. Corporate Names:
Committees
Committee Members
Documents
Documents:
An entry form for the documents table, docs, one of the three main “entity” tables, along with names
and films.
Documents are in fact the primary objects of the collection - the PFA is a clippings library. Names and films serve only for adding context to the documents. Document records are by far the most complex records in the PFA database.
A record includes title, type of document, publication date, author, LCSH subject headings, publisher (source), number of pages, a note about pagination, copyright holder, copyright permissions granted, URL for the document on the publishers website (if available), information about the contents of the document (cast credits, technical credits, filmography, bibliography, etc).
Document With Summary
Document summary:
This is a very useful feature for catalogers. Since data entry screens do not show the full logical record, a summary popup allows catalogers editing an existing record to view the full record in its current state without needing to gather the information from multiple screens.
The summary can be invoked by clicking the “Summary” button at the top of the the Documents screen.
Document Authors
Document authors:
Document films
Document films:
An entry form for associating documents and films. The film is treated as a subject of the document, though it is not kept in the subjects table since it is not a Library of Congress Subject Heading (LCSH). So, instead of a “subject”, it is a “film subject”.
Document Names
Document names:
Document Subjects
Document subjects:
Document Languages
Document languages:
Document Sources
Document sources:
Document Types
Document types:
Document URLS
Document urls:
Contains, when available, the URL of a document on the publishers website – it makes publishers happy.
Copyright Holders
Copyright holders:
The names of copyright holders for individual documents. This deals with those cases where the copyright holder is different from the publisher of record.
Copyright Messages
Copyright messages:
Document Entry
Document entry:
As with films, for the convenience of the catalogers we have this form for a virtual document table that includes a complete logical document record. After entry, an insert trigger pushes the parts of the virtual table out to the “real” base tables and then truncates the virtual table.
Genres
Genres:
A controlled list of film genre terms.
Alt. Genres
Alt genres:
Subjects
Subjects:
This is a table of Library of Congress Subject Headings that have been collected and used by the PFA staff as part of the cataloging process.
Languages
Countries
Authority Sources
Authority sources:
Sources of cataloging information (bibliographic, etc)
Accented Chars
Accented chars:
A simple convenience table with latin1 accented characters that catalogers can cut and paste from if they are unable to enter the characters from their keyboard.
Asset Management
Asset Mgmt:
Not really a part of the PFA document database, this table contains tracking information about letters sent to publishes requesting permission to make their content available through the CineFiles website, and the publishers response (if any).
PFA Staff
PFA staff:
The pfastaff table is a list of staff members with their permissions for accessing/modifying the PFA database. Every record in the database is stamped with the unique identifying initials, drawn from the