Wow! What a great Monday! Some of the ALD staff learned about Aquabrowser and the myriad features it provides. (Myriad was an 8th grade vocabulary word so I feel like quite the hot shot in using it :)
Here are some of the great things it does:
*let's you refine your search without needing to know controlled vocabulary
*libraries can include the federated search part if they've purchased it
*the tag cloud feature was created to appeal to younger people. many libraries have chosen to keep their other catalog, called "classic" on some sites. this is a nice cross-over feature which appeals to the wide range of users we have
*depending on how well it can "play" with III, we can automate the "coming soon" lists we put on the site. Users can subscribe to the RSS feed for latest ordered materials
*staff picks can be more heavily weighed to rise closer to the top of search results
In addition, I like Aquabrowser's concept of pushing for new and innovative features, such as:
*tagging and rating
*the flexibility of closing the tag cloud window
*grouping all editions of one title as one entry
*results show the different formats across the top of the page so you can quickly narrow your search accordingly
*relevance boosts which puts a title closer to the top of the search based partially on item counts.
These things are due later this year. If you're interested in seeing library catalogs run on Aquabrower here's a few:
King County Public Library
Toledo Lucas County Public Library
Queens Library (this links to the kids catalog area) Aquabrowser has the ability to parse off searches so if you're in Tales Treehouse and search you would only get juvenile materials. Way cool?
Closer to home, Rangeview (Adams County) has already installed Aquabrowser and Douglas County libraries will.
Take a spin, ask your significant other what he/she thinks about the look and results in Aquabrowser and let me know what you think!
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3 comments:
I totally think it is way cool. I would like to play around with it more, but I really like it! It's fun. :)
It looks good. I see on King County's site that it searches Syndetics. This would be a huge advantage for the patrons. There are so many summaries in Syndetics that are lost to us at present when doing a keyword search (or any kind of search). I seem to remember asking at the Encore presentation if their product searched Syndetics and was told that it did not. This is a huge problem with Encore that we shouldn't overlook.
I'm a little confused by the tag cloud which was what excited me about Encore. In King County, though, nothing in the tag cloud seems really relevant no matter what search term I put in. One I tried was "all-terrain cycling". The tag cloud brought back bicycle, habit, orchestra, business, coaling, Auel, song, among other oddities. How useful is that to anybody? But it's been explained to me that Aquabrowser's tag cloud is not meant to be useful in the terms of taking you somewhere related to your original search, but to take you "off an an adventure." I think this is geared to younger library users and could be actually annoying if you think it's going to help your search.
Interesting topic, and thanks for the links to actual sites.
Months ago, when I first began playing with Aquabrowser catalogs, I was severely frustrated by the "Discovery Cloud". (Cynthia - these are not "tags" like the III 'tag cloud' of Encore. The 'Discovery Cloud', as of now, is not accepting tags from patrons.) How that cloud related to my search wasn't clearly described on any of the catalogs I visited. Only after making peace with the idea that the cloud is to move away from my original search on an exploration of the catalog, then I felt more comfortable. It can be a fun way to browse the catalog if you aren't pressed for time.
I do like the apparent flexibility of the kind of "Refine" categories we might be able to add, however I am still sceptical of how flexible this interface works with our ILS.
Indeed, looking at other catalogs (both III and non-III ILS libraries) the searching is very impressive, the 'discovery cloud' is neat, and the 'refine' categories are helpful . . . BUT when it comes time to actually place a hold, or do anything that requires the involvement of the ILS I see a wide variety of confusing and awkward behaviors on these Aquabrowser catalogs.
Expect frustrated and confused patrons if we implement this.
To speak a little about Syndetics which Mary mentions . . . King County as of yet does not actually search Syndetics when searching the catalog, however the list of results will break out the Syndetic features for each title (Annotations, Reviews, etc). This is nice to have displayed so a patron knows exactly what information is available. Too many times I click on the "More Info" button or book jacket image in our catalog to get nothing more from Syndetics than another view of the book jacket image, or nothing at all.
That being said, Syndetics has just released a new product that we would need to buy, which works with Aquabrowser to search the Syndetics content. It is very impressive indeed.
A test site we saw had this turned on:
http://enrichedabl.medialab.nl/
Search for "mystery".
Then using the "Refine" options on the right-hand side of the screen . . .
Scroll down to find the limit category of "Setting" and select 'Village'.
Then scroll down to "Genre" and select 'Cozy'.
Then limit by "Setting" of 'Seaside'.
The initial search of "Mystery" gave me 22,000 results, however just a few clicks later and I have a list of 42 titles that are cozy mysteries set in villages by the sea. And I believe most of those "refining" terms came from the way Aquabrowser was searching the Syndetics content for each title, and not from the MARC records.
Aquabrowser is an interesting product, and I think III is playing catch-up with their development of Encore. It will be interesting when we can compare them side-by-side.
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