The Ottawa Hospital Library is the latest Andornot client to launch Genie (part of the Inmagic DB/Text Library Suite).

The hospital library serves both hospital staff and patients from multiple locations in Ottawa. Previously, staff used several separate DB/Textworks databases to manage collections of materials for these different audiences and locations. In moving to Genie, these databases were consolidated into the single Genie Catalog to simplify access.

Most of the data conversion, including mapping of fields and converting data into the Genie databases, was done by librarian Risa Shorr. As an experienced DB/TextWorks user, Risa was able to see the similarities between her databases and those used by Genie, and use the features available in DB/TextWorks to move the data over. Andornot provided guidance and recommendations as needed.

"The combination of expertise between Andornot and Risa meant that our move to Genie was cost effective. Andornot was extremely supportive of the collaborative approach to installing and customizing Genie to meet our needs," says Margaret Quirie, Director, Library Services.

With Genie launched for library staff, the library asked Andornot to develop a new OPAC for hospital staff and patients. The new OPAC is based on the Andornot Starter Kit and features:

• quick and advanced search screens for all library materials;
• a specific search screen for patients, targeted just at those materials they may access;
• Andornot extras such as Google style search syntax with automatic ANDing of terms and stemming of words, plus enhanced navigation and display options;
• automatic display of the five most recent additions to the catalog on the Quick Search page, and a link to a canned search showing the latest materials;
• tick boxes to allow users to mark items as they find them, then submit a request to the library for those materials indicating their preferred pickup location, or email a copy of the list to themselves or a colleague, or save or print the list;
• icons in the search results to help users more easily identify the types of materials in their search results;
• Google Book Covers and links to more information on titles in the Google Books database; and
• “permalinks” and a Share button to expedite bookmarking of records and sharing with colleagues via social networking services.

View the new OPAC here.

The library often has multiple copies of a title, in different locations. As a result of the data conversion, these are represented as individual records in the Genie Catalog textbase (rather than a single Catalog record with multiple Item records). This is quite a common occurrence after a data conversion, and while it’s possible to clean it up, in this case it was simpler to modify the OPAC to group records by title, but still show the edition and location information for each individual record.

The Google Book Covers have been a particularly well-received feature, with users remembering books based on the cover they saw.

Please contact Andornot for more information on Genie, the Andornot Starter Kit, and our consulting services.

ArchivesNext is an American weblog with a monthly audience of 10,000 covering topics related to archives and technology. The award to the City of Burnaby Archives for "Best re-purposing of descriptive data" was shared with the Smithsonian Institute.

"One of the goals of the Charting Change project was to bring together Burnaby's heritage resources in a useful, accessible and interesting format that allowed our community to interact with and experience their history in a new way," said Arilea Sill, archivist for the city, in a press release. "The nomination and award announcement is a mark of success and recognition for the city as a whole for the creative approach it has taken in sponsoring such programs."

The Charting Change atlas developed by Andornot and the City of Burnaby allows users to see how historical events, ranging from First Nations settlement to the founding of Fort Langley in 1825, through to the Depression and post-war housing boom have shaped the community of Burnaby. Behind the scenes, the information shown on each map point is pulled from the existing Inmagic databases currently searchable from the Heritage Burnaby website.   Heritage landmarks, historic buildings, and neighbourhoods are plotted and linked to the records for photographs, artifacts, textual records and bylaws.

For more information on this project, see the press release from the City of Burnaby, the announcement on the ArchivesNext website or our earlier blog posts describing the project.  The atlas is available on the Heritage Burnaby website.

Our congratulations to the City of Burnaby team - it was a pleasure to work on this project with them. If you have ideas for enhancing access to your collections, be sure to contact us to discuss possibilities.

The Provincial Resource Centre for the Visually Impaired (PRCVI) has upgraded their website with a new graphic design and more content served up by Inmagic WebPublisher PRO.

PRCVI is a British Columbia Ministry of Education program that assists school districts and students with visual impairment or blindness by providing educational resources in alternate formats, such as braille, tactile graphics, digital text and large print.

Both the previous and new websites feature a wealth of resources for teachers, students and parents, including questions and answers about PRCVI services, news of upcoming events and conferences, information about scholarships, and links to other web resources.

The previous website was maintained by hand, as staff time permitted. With many TextWorks databases already in use at PRCVI for tracking their library collection, borrowers and teachers, it was a natural extension to catalogue all the web resources in a new database, then publish that information on the website with WebPublisher PRO.

Almost all the content in the new website is served up dynamically from this database. Users may browse resources by category and target audience to drill down to items of interest, or perform a keyword search.

"Making resources more accessible will save staff time in answering emails from users who couldn’t find the information previously", says Susan Hannigan. "It's also easy for several of our staff to publish new information to the site just by entering items into a textbase record. They're already familiar with TextWorks, so the learning curve wasn’t very steep."

Using TextWorks and WebPublisher PRO as the basis for their new website allowed PRCVI to make more use of its investment in Inmagic software, with staff already trained to use it.

Contact Andornot to discuss other ways you could be using your copy of Inmagic WebPublisher PRO.

Are you:

• Looking for the latest information to maximize your investment in Inmagic products?
• Interested in getting advice and guidance on best practices from the experts?
• Eager for an opportunity to connect with peers at other organizations to discuss experiences, tips and tricks?

If you answered “yes” to any of the questions above, join us at one of our upcoming Inmagic meetings in Montreal and Ottawa.

These educational, interactive sessions – open to all Inmagic users – will cover all these topics and more.

Kathy Bryce and Denise Bonin of Andornot will catch you up on the latest features in the DB/Text Library Suite, which includes DB/TextWorks, WebPublisher PRO and Inmagic Genie.

You'll get a chance to see some of our recent implementations - including a cool deployment that integrates the search interface with SharePoint. And, lastly, Denise and Kathy will also reveal some of their tricks - giving you the power to add Google Book Covers and social sharing tools such as AddThis to your web interfaces!
As always, the floor will be open to questions and there will time to bounce ideas off fellow Inmagic users. If there are any particular topics you would like to cover, feel free to email us in advance.

See below for registration details – and sign up today. Seating is limited! 

Montreal
Date: Monday, June 7th
Time: 2:30 pm. to 4:30 pm.
Location:
Jewish Public Library
1, carre Cummings Square (5151 Cote Ste-Catherine)
Montreal, Quebec H3W 1M6

To register for the Montreal meeting, please send an email to Shannon Hodge, Archivist, Jewish Public Library Archives at Shannon.Hodge@jplmontreal.org by Friday, June 4th.

Ottawa
Date: Tuesday, June 8th
Time: 2:30 pm. to 4:30 pm.
Location:
Smart & Biggar/Fetherstonhaugh
900-55 Metcalfe Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5Y6

To register for the Ottawa meeting, please send an email to Jane Donaldson, Intranet Webmaster, at jgdonaldson@smart-biggar.ca by Monday, June 7th.

If you have any questions, please email us for details. 

If you can’t attend either of these meetings, we’ll also be exhibiting at both CHLA and AAO in June.

Please Join Inmagic and Inmagic Partners Andornot and Phipps & Associates For a Special User Group Event!

Featuring Melanie Browne
Information Specialist at Maple Leaf Foods