LOCal: A flexible Web-based microscope reservation system

摘要

Many microscopes, especially confocal and electron microscopes, are costly to purchase and maintain and are often only available in centralized facilities. The Internet has provided the potential for real-time accessibility to these microscopy resources with HTML pages describing the facility and the equipment available and, in some cases, the remote use of the microscope itself. Web-based booking systems have become another powerful way to improve accessibility to a microscope. A public-domain, calendar-based booking system for the online scheduling and user management of microscopes in laboratories and multi-user microscopy facilities is described. One extremely powerful application of Internet technology has been for individual research laboratories to create an online presence through the Web. Establishing such a Web presence has been facilitated by the advent of "what you see is what you get" HTML editors and easy-to-use Web server applications. The vast majority of laboratories now have Web sites that provide information about the laboratory, such as research projects, favorite protocols, and access to publications, images, and movies. Reflecting a trend seen in the general commodity Internet, these scientific sites have now become more sophisticated, often containing interactive content such as forms and Web databases. These interactive elements are created with "Internet-aware" scripting languages such as Perl, PHP, and JavaScript. The use of these scripting languages is not new. Perl, for example, has been used for Webbased input forms for years. However, as these scripting languages have become more powerful, so has their potential.