McMaster launches Endeca interface

Greetings!

I’m very pleased to announce that McMaster launched our new Endeca interface this week. We consider this a “soft launch” and our existing Horizon catalog will remain in place until this fall (to give our users a chance to wean themselves from Horizon). For now, the Endeca interface is a simple search box on our existing opac. You can find it at: http://library.mcmaster.ca/ Look for the NEW icon in the center of the screen.

Try “consumer health” as a search. Once you receive the first set of “hits” you can easily break it down by “new titles”, “books”, “e-books” by clicking on the “refine your search” options to the left. The interface is so much easier to navigate than a traditional library catalog!

Feel free to take it for a test drive and send me your comments. We will continue to work with Endeca to develop and improve the site. More to come! We’re thrilled to be part of the Endeca family!

New Blog: Designing Better Libraries

A new blog has just been launched!  Designign Better Libraries is about “adapting new ways of thinking and acting that will promote the development and implementation of ideas, strategies and services that will create a better library experience for the users”.

Authors include:  Steven Bell, Michael J. Giarlo, Brian Matthews, John Shank, Jill Stover, Jeff Trzeciak

I’m excited by this topic and look forward to being a contributor to and reader of this blog!