JEFFLINE Milestones Tour

Webs We Spin

The World Wide Web changed the way everyone did business, and JEFFLINE was one of the early adopters. At first, it was a matter of simply converting previous terminal menus to a new environment and putting a nice graphic or two on top.

But quickly it became apparent that users who were new to the Web needed a friendlier environment. JEFFLINE created an office metaphor to welcome new users, and provided online help with characters such as Minerva, the librarian, and Apollo, the computer tech.

JEFFLINE use continued to grow:

• In 1995, bibliographic database use topped 20,000 hours.
• Over 3,500 email accounts were administered by AISR.
• Over 100,000 hours were logged on CWIS and email services.

The first real image-based interface was introduced less than a year later.
A long text-based menu displayed beneath the imagemap, so users could choose either path to resources