ThinkWood Research Library

The ThinkWood Research Library is a central resource for research on designing and building with wood. An enhanced search engine for this collection has just been launched at https://research.thinkwood.com

The library links to research publications from around the world about structural systems composed of mass timber, heavy timber, and light-frame construction (for buildings five stories and up). Research topics include design and systems, connections, mechanical properties, acoustics and vibration, energy performance, fire, seismic, moisture, wind, serviceability, environmental impact, cost and market adoption.

The library is managed by Forestry Innovation Investment Ltd, a provincial crown corporation, who approached Andornot for assistance with improving management and searching of this library.

Andornot recommended and then implemented a system using Inmagic DB/TextWorks as the back-end database and our Andornot Discovery Interface as the public search system. Data was converted and de-duplicated from two sources: MS Access and a WordPress site.

The result works well for both FII staff who catalog new resources and architects and engineers who have an easier means to search for them.

In the back-end DB/TextWorks database, a few features have proven to be particularly useful in this project, including:

• Validation lists to ensure consistent application of names, keywords, topics, product types, etc.;
• dead URL Link Checking to find and edit links to resources that move; and
• batch modification to clean up older data.

While in AnDI, features such as spelling corrections, relevancy-ranked results, and facets to help narrow a search all combine to make for a simple and enjoyable search process. In particular for this project, made use of AnDI's synonyms feature to equate terms with their acronyms and variations, such as:

• GLT, glulam, glued laminated timber, glue laminated timber
• CLT, cross laminated timber, xlam, x-lam, cross-lam

Whenever any term in a comma-separated set of terms is searched, all the others in the set are also searched for, resulting in broader discovery of resources, especially where different terms have been used.

To improve the visual appeal of the site, we took a small screenshot of each resource (PDFs and web pages) and included it as a thumbnail in the search results.

Andornot was delighted at the positive feedback we received, such as:

Thank you very much for all the hard work and for all of your expertise. The whole team is very happy with the aesthetics and functionalities of the database and website. Antje Wahl, Manager, Industry Innovation, Forestry Innovation Investment Ltd.

This is very exciting! Overall, this was one of FII's smoothest web refits/redesigns! Well done to all that were involved :-) Lindsay Bridgman, Manager, IT, Forestry Innovation Investment Ltd.

Contact us to discuss projects to better manage your resources and library collections.