Inmagic DB/TextWorks has a lot of features you don’t find in a more generic database management system, adding over the years to suit the specific needs of the kinds of folks who use DB/TextWorks (often librarians, archivists and other cultural information managers) and their data.

One of the most often overlooked features is the subject of this blog post: the Insert Series feature.

This feature allows you to insert a predictable series of numbers or dates in a field. For example:

• 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
• January, February, March
• A101, A201, A301

The series is inserted as separate entries within a field you choose, and you specify the starting number, number of entries, and by much much each entry in the series should increase.

What a wonderful feature that can save time and improve accuracy over typing out a series by hand, but what’s the practical application of this?

The main intended use is when you’re cataloguing a journal or looseleaf for which you have many past issues and want to record not just a statement about all those issues, but the individual issue numbers or dates in a field. Rather than typing each individual issue number or date, have DBTextWorks enter them for you. If some issues are missing, you can then remove those numbers from the series before saving the record.

You can insert not only a numerical or alphanumerical series, but also a date pattern that increments by the day, week, half month, month and year. For example:

• Days: May 1, 2022, May 2, 2022, May 3, 2022
• Weeks: May 1, 2022, May 8, 2022, May 15, 2022
• Half-months: May 1, 2022, May 15, 2022, June 1, 2022
• Months: May 1, 2022, June 1, 2022, July 1, 2022
• Years: May 1, 2021, May 1, 2022, May 1, 2023

This could be used anytime you have data to add to a record that follows a predictable chronological or alphanumeric pattern.

It’s not the most exciting feature, but one to keep in mind as a time saving tool when you need it, and it’s little things like this that keep DB/TextWorks popular so many decades after it was first created.

The Insert Series feature may be found when editing a record by positioning the cursor in the desired field and choosing Edit > Insert > Series from the main menu.

The West Vancouver Archives collects, preserves, and provides meaningful access to the records that tell the story of West Vancouver, while the West Vancouver Art Museum builds awareness of diverse forms of contemporary and historical art, architecture, and design, engaging audiences with issues and ideas central to the community and the world beyond.

Their combined collections of over 35,000 archival descriptions, fine art, historic artifacts, photographs and more are now searchable together through a single interface at https://archives.westvancouver.ca

This site is powered by our Andornot Discovery Interface (AnDI), indexing data from a series of Inmagic DB/TextWorks textbases the archives and art museum use to manage their collections.

A discovery interface such as AnDI encourages serendipitous “discovery” of resources and is now the standard method of searching in most major archives and museums, university and public libraries, and e-commerce sites. Users enter keywords to express roughly what they are looking for, then sophisticated search algorithms, with automatic word stemming and spelling corrections, present relevancy-ranked results. Facets allow users to then refine their searches easily and efficiently. 

Items of interest may be added to a selection list for printing, emailing, and sharing on social media, as well as requesting more information or photograph reproductions from the archives and museum.

For many years, Andornot has proudly sponsored professional association events and supported our colleagues through participation in conference trade shows. In 2017 we introduced our Andornot Professional Development Grant, and are pleased to continue to offer it for 2023.

$1,000 is available, to be shared amongst as many applicants as possible. The funds could be put towards any costs associated with activities such as:

• Attending an in-person or online conference, workshop, study session, event, lecture or other learning opportunity.
• Hosting our organizing such an event.

Costs that could be funded include the costs of the virtual or real world event (space, speaker fees, software fees, travel costs) or even the loss of income if you miss work to participate or organize the event.

We’re open to your ideas for what might benefit you and your work or career in these challenging times, so these are simply ideas. We invite you to also present something for which you seek funding.

The deadline for application is January 31, 2023 and recipients will be notified as soon as possible after that date.

Apply at https://www.andornot.com/grant

The Centre du patrimoine (Heritage Centre) of the Société historique de Saint-Boniface is an archive and research facility dedicated to the preservation, study, dissemination and development of Francophone and Metis history in Manitoba and Western Canada. The Heritage Centre holds more than 500 archival fonds documenting every facet of life from culture to commerce, education to politics and religion to the economy.

In 2010-2011, Andornot helped the Heritage Centre to upgrade their DB/TextWorks-based collection management system. This also included a collection of 35,000 records of contracts between fur traders (Voyageurs) and companies engaged in the fur trade in Canada between 1700 and ca. 1822.

In 2016, thanks to a grant from the Library and Archives Canada Documentary Heritage Communities Program, the Heritage Centre was able to upgrade this web search interface to one powered by the Andornot Discovery Interface (AnDI). The site is hosted by Andornot at https://archivesshsb.mb.ca 

In 2022, the site was upgraded to the latest version of our Andornot Discovery Interface (AnDI), to provide users with all the latest features and meet modern browser requirements.

AnDI offers features not available in the previous site, such as the ability to search the museum, library and Voyageurs collections together, a more advanced search engine, spelling corrections and search suggestions, and facets to help users narrow their search.

The interface is designed for both desktop and mobile devices. There are features that help users view enlarged images, and to play back video recordings without leaving the site. 

New to the site in this upgrade are large high-resolution scans of architectural drawings. Even on large screens with an image at full-width, it can be hard to see small details in an architectural drawing, so Andornot implemented an image zooming feature that allows users to see both the whole drawing and enlargements of selected portions without having to download a very large image file.

Other useful features include an RSS feed of newly-added records, and a selection list that allows users to save, email or print records, or request more information on them from the Heritage Centre. And last but not least, the Disqus commenting system allows users to engage in discussions with themselves and the Centre about records, helping to add or correct descriptive information.

Contact Andornot to discuss a similar project for your museum or archives.

The Nova Scotia Barristers Society uses DB/TextWorks to manage their library catalogue. The collection has been searchable online with a variety of tools over the years, and now is powered by Andornot Discovery Interface.

The site is available at https://catalogue.nsbs.org and hosted by Andornot.

When searching, features such as spelling corrections and search suggestions, relevancy-ranked results, and facets such as Author, Subject, Material Type and Publication Date help users to quickly locate items of interest.

Several thousand documents are immediately available online, with the full text indexed and fully searchable.

Contact us for help managing and searching your legal collections, libraries and other information resources.