Galt Museum and Archives Collections Search

The Galt Museum and Archives in Lethbridge, Alberta has launched a new search engine for their cultural collections at https://collections.galtmuseum.com

This new site is powered by our Andornot Discovery Interface. This modern search engine provides features that users have come to expect, including spelling corrections, "did you mean" search suggestions, results ranked by relevancy, and facets to help narrow down the results further, such as by name, topic and date.

Previously, users were only able to search the archives, museum artifacts and library collections through three separate searches. Now, with the Andornot Discovery Interface, researchers can search all materials at once and discover related records quickly and easily. Over eighty percent of the resources in the site include photographs, especially of artifacts in the museum, making for a visually engaging experience researching the history of Lethbridge and surrounding area.

Once results are found, a user can save them for later review, share them on Pinterest, Google+ and other social media, or request more information from the museum and archives.

The graphic design of the site was adapted from the fonts, colours and layout of the main museum website, for a seamless transition between the two. The bright colours add to the fun factor when using the site, without detracting from the resources and the many historic photos in search results.

Like many museums and archives, the Galt has for many years managed their collections with Inmagic software. A series of DB/TextWorks databases continue to be home to metadata about the archives, museum artifacts, and a small library. The museum is running the latest version, so has access to many new features, but still within the familiar and easy-to-use interface they are used to.

This is a big step forward in terms of both appeal and usability, and the integrated search -- across archives, collections and library databases -- is the feature that we long wished for." Andrew Chernevych, Archivist, Galt Museum & Archives

Contact Andornot to discuss options for better management and searching of your cultural collections.