August 15, 2007 (Volume 13, no. 20) – Cool Ideas

Cool Ideas

Corvallis-Benton County Public Library Uses a New Visual Search Tool

Have you ever worked with someone who didn’t understand a concept until you showed them a picture? Have you ever wished you could view catalog search returns in something other than a list format? At Corvallis-Benton County Public Library, they have provided patrons with a way to do just that. Aquabrowser is an alternative interface to the library catalog that allows the patron to do a more visual search. After entering a keyword, it displays a “cloud” of related concepts, meanings and spellings.

Carrie Ottow, CBCPL Adult Reference Librarian reports, “it’s great because it almost always returns hits. If it doesn’t have any hits, it has a spell checker that suggests other spellings. For example type in fibromialjia – it says “did you mean fibromyalgia.” It’s easy to use, patrons just type in a keyword, and it’s easy narrow results based on a format (books, music, movies, etc.), author, subject, language or series.”

The Aquabrowser catalog has been receiving a lot of use, even though it isn’t the default view from their homepage. Patrons who see Aquabrowser at the desk are very enthusiastic about it. CBCPL hopes to switch and have it be the default catalog soon.

Check it out yourself at http://library.ci.corvallis.or.us/aquabrowser/