Introduction

The Beams Division Document Database has been created to store documents for Beams Division activities. Notes within the database provide guidance for most uses. See menu items "Get instructions" and "Useful notes" on the right hand column of the main menu. These items are generally sufficient for authors to use the database. This note will supplement that information with some comments and a couple of printable files so that secretaries can easily ask for the help they might need to properly insert documents into the database.

Requirements for Entering Documents

The document available as "Useful notes" provides many hints about inserting documents. I would encourage the administrative staff to scan this for useful information, skipping any technical details which they don't expect to need. Here we will review some of the details which are particularly useful when someone who is not the author needs to insert a document.

• Title required.
• Abstract required. If no formal abstract is available, please consider adding a line or two to describe the contents succinctly. For consistency, when adding existing formal documents with no abstract, I fill that space with "N.A."
• Date required. The system will insert a create date when the document is created and modify dates when the document or its database information is modified. The date to be used can be selected on the form. It is appropriate to show the real date of documents, especially when inserting older materials.
• Document type required. Select from: Talk, Figure/Photo, Audio, Publication, Technical Drawing, Video, Proceeding, Note, Other, Poster, Minutes
• One must have the file or files which make up the document available either on the local computer or via web access.
• Topic required. Each document must be identified with at least one topic (organized in a Topic/Subtopic hierarchy) but one can and often should indicate more than one topic/subtopic to aid in searching.
• Keywords not required. To provide additional search capability, keywords can and should be attached to a document.

If administrative personnel have been provided a document to insert into the database, the above steps are mostly straightforward except for designating topics and keywords. If help in selecting these is needed, one can print the document and a list of topics and keywords. Provide these, along with a highlighter to a knowledgeable technical person and ask that they identify the topic/topics and keywords they recommend. A pdf version of these lists are provided as separate files in the database document. Bring them up in your browser (using the Acrobat helper application) and print them if they are useful. [That was a major reason for creating this document]. At some point, these lists will become out of date. Please contact the author if this is a problem for you.

For remaining questions, please consult knowledgeable colleagues or the persons identified in the "Useful notes" document (including this author), Good luck.