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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, and publish the data online using our Andornot Starter Kit. 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.

This year, 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 http://archivesshsb.mb.ca

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.

"The results are just fantastic and the transition was practically seamless."

-- Gilles Lesage, Directeur general, Centre du patrimoine

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

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Institute at Stanford Universityuses DB/TextWorks to manage an archival database of tens of thousands of speeches, sermons, letters, and other documents by and about Martin Luther King, Jr.

Known as OKRA (Online King Records Access), the database includes descriptive information as well as holdings details for these resources held at repositories all over the United States. Digitized audio and video recording are also available.

A web-based data entry system had been developed many years ago, using Inmagic WebPublisher PRO. However, advances in web technologies had resulted in problems with this interface. A decision was made to replace it with a purely DB/TextWorks-based solution.

Andornot upgraded the query screens, reports and data entry forms in the main database to ones based on our Andornot Starter Kit, for improved usability. Script-buttons were included to assist with searching and editing records, and scripts and other validation was added to the data entry forms to aid in looking up information in other databases, and to restrict some user groups' access the database. Secondary databases were converted to thesauri so that they could be used as validation lists, but with multiple selections possible in a field and record in the main database.

Online search access using Inmagic WebPublisher PRO remains available at http://okra.stanford.edu though this interface may also be upgraded in the near future.

Please contact Andornot for assistance with your Inmagic-based databases, and similar projects.

Andornot recently helped the Law Society of New Brunswick Library upgrade its Inmagic DB/TextWorks and WebPublisher PRO-based library catalogue.  

We started by upgrading the DB/TextWorks database to the latest version available from our Andornot Starter Kit, including attractive query screens, reports and forms, with script buttons for easy navigation.

We then developed a new web interface using a responsive template that works as well on tablet or phone as a desktop browser. This attractive interface incorporates design elements from the Law Society’s main website, while providing maximum usability for searching the catalogue. 

The catalogue search is available in English and French, and allows society members to request items from the library with a simple form.

The new catalogue is available at http://www.nblawlib-bib.ca

"It's been an exciting and informative time with the development and launch of the new catalogue website, led by the exceptional guidance and direction of Jonathan and the team at Andornot. The Provincial Libraries Committee and myself are pleased with the outcome and look forward to patrons accessing and benefitting from the ease of use of the new template and the resources available."  -- Tanya Davis, Provincial Law Librarian

The new catalogue is hosted by Andornot as part of our managed hosting service.

Contact us to discuss improvements that might be possible for your catalogue.

Inmagic released version 15 of DB/TextWorks and WebPublisher PRO not long ago and many of you have or are upgrading to this new version, to take advantage of some of the great new features, especially in DB/TextWorks.

Please note that when upgrading, special attention must be paid to any forms and query screens inside your textbase that you use on the web. This may be forms that you developed yourself and use with WebPublisher, or they may be forms provided by Andornot as part of our Andornot Starter Kit or Andornot Archives Starter Kit. A change to DB/TextWorks in version 15 may affect the layout of your search pages and results.

The ReadMe file for version 15 notes the following:

Use Cascading Style Sheets to preserve formatting. In the Query Screen Designer and Form Designer the HTML tab of the Screen Properties or Form Properties dialog box includes this new option. Previous versions of DB/TextWorks asked the question each time you used Export Query Screen to HTML or Export Editing Form to HTML. In addition:

  • Whether cascading style sheets (CSS) are used is explicitly specified for each form, rather than for WebPublisher as a whole or by query screen.
  • The WebCSSOpt= DBTWPUB.INI option and the CS= URL parameter have been removed.
  • WebPublisher no longer tries to guess whether CSS will cause overlapping by automatically disabling CSS for forms that include Raw HTMLor Inline Images.
  • When DB/TextWorks upgrades a textbase for use with v15.0, all query screens and forms will be modified to have this option checked. If any of your forms include Raw HTML or Inline Images, which may cause overlapping, you may need to open them in the Form Designer to uncheck this option.

All forms that were provided by Andornot from our Starter Kits should not have Use CSS checked. With forms that you developed yourself, you may or may not wish to have this, depending on your form design.

If you've already upgraded and your web search layout is looking a bit like the morning after a wild night out (e.g. messed up), most likely it's due to the above and you simply need to open each form in the Form Designer, edit the Form Properties, and uncheck this box.

If you need assistance with the above, or have other layout issues, please feel free to contact us.

Last night I had the pleasure of speaking to students at the School of Library, Archival and Information studies (aka iSchool) at the University of British Columbia. These students are taking LIBR 582: Digital Images and Text Collections and learning all the fundamentals of how to digitize materals, manage them, and provide online access. In particular, they are using Inmagic DB/TextWorks to build a database of digitized materials, and manage the metadata associated with them, as well as CONTENTdm from OCLC for web presentation.

In last night's class, I presented Andornot's common solutions for managing digital images and text. For those who missed the presentation, here's a recap.

Inmagic DB/TextWorks and an Andornot Starter Kit

We always recommend Inmagic DB/TextWorks as an easy to use database system for managing metadata about digitized objects, whether they are textual, photographic or audio-visual, and no matter whether born digitial or scanned from an analogue source. Paired with one of our starter kits, any library, archive, museum or other organization can be up and running in just a few hours. Information can be entered in simple data entry screens, by staff or volunteers, or imported from other sources.

Inmagic WebPublisher PRO

Inmagic's original web publishing platform, combined with an Andornot kit, can provide simple search access to a DB/TextWorks database. A modern web design can be applied so that the site can be used on tablets and phones. Features such as spelling corrections and facets are not available however.

Andornot Discovery Interface (AnDI)

The Andornot Discovery Interface (AnDI) uses the popular Apache Solr search engine to provide relevancy-ranked results, spelling corrections, and facets for search refinement. Websites built with AnDI include features for displaying images in various sizes, in list or gallery format, for embedding playback of audio and video files, and for viewing and browsing individual pages of digitized documents, with highlighting of search terms on the pages.

VuFind

The open-source VuFind discovery interface is very popular with academic and public libraries, and a growing number of special ones.

Inmagic Presto

Inmagic's current generation web publishing platform offers users the ability to configure their own screens and displays with no programming required, and now includes facets for search refinement.

Omeka

The open-source Omeka content management system can be used for metadata management as well as searching. It doesn't offer spelling corrections or facets for search refinement, but does provide a very easy to use web interface and an Exhibit Builder plug-in to develop exhibits of aspects of a collection.

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