Many organizations have a mandate to engage with their community and provide a forum for dialogue about their collections and their role in their community. Others simply value the information their community has about their collections and welcome feedback and information. For example, in a special library, senior staff may be able to recommend particular works as key texts in their field. In an archives or museum, community members may be able to help identify places and people in photographs, or add information about the history of a place or document.

Our Andornot Discovery Interface offers both simple and more sophisticated methods to assist with “crowdsourcing” campaigns such as these.

1. Every AnDI site can include a button labeled Feedback or Comments with a simple email link, allowing users to send you direct feedback on specific records. While simple, it relies on users having an email client available to send from.

2. AnDI’s selection list (cart) can also be used to solicit feedback from users on many records at once. Users may add records to their cart, then comment on them in a form, with the information sent to you via email directly from AnDI.

3. The more sophisticated approach is to add a more dynamic commenting system to your AnDI site via the third-party Disqus service. Disqus is one the most popular commenting services on the web today, and can be found embedded in a wide variety of websites. It is supported by ad-revenue, but non-profits have the option to opt-out of ad display, and there are no fees for using the service. Each record in AnDI would have its own comment channel / discussion, so that users can comment on or discuss books, photographs, artifacts, archival records, and other information in your site. Disqus offers a robust back-end, so you can choose to have all comments moderated before they appear, and otherwise manage the activity.

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.

The Centre added Disqus commenting to their AnDI site (https://archivesshsb.mb.ca) a few years ago and has seen regular and meaningful discussions taking place online. In 2019 we adjusted the site to promote records with discussion activity on the home page, and to show a count of comments in search results.

All of the above options will have the greatest success if paired with a campaign to raise awareness of the features and need for assistance. Social media, print media, contests and all the other promotional tools of the trade may be employed.

The Canadian Medical Association publishes policies and briefs on a wide range of health topics, representing the position of the CMA's members.

This database has long been available online, but is now powered by our Andornot Discovery Interface.

The new site is available at https://policybase.cma.ca and is hosted by Andornot within our Managed Hosting service.

The site offers users the features they expect from a modern search engine: spelling corrections, "did you mean" search suggestions, relevancy ranked results powered by sophisticated algorithms, and facets such as topic, year, and type of policy to quickly and easily refine a search.

Policies are available as PDFs linked from search results, and the full text of each PDF is indexed and searchable too. If any search words are found in the full text, a snippet of the relevant passage showing the words in context is displayed in search results. The user may then click a single button to open the policy in their browser with their search words pre-highlighted, where ever they may appear in the document. This feature saves the user from having to download, open and search all over again within the PDF for the relevant passage.

The site is available in English and French - not only the user interface, but all the metadata and PDFs too - allowing users to search and fully interact with the site in either language.

Policies are managed in a DB/TextWorks database by CMA Library staff. 

Updating the CMA PolicyBase was long overdue. We needed to update the interface and functionality to make it more user friendly. While it seemed like an overwhelming task, Jonathan guided us through each step of the process.  We're really pleased with the end result, so much so that we're now converting other databases to the Andornot Discovery Interface.

-- Debbie Ayotte, Associate Director, Policy Research & Support, Canadian Medical Association

A separate Physician Workforce Survey search engine is available at https://surveys.cma.ca and is also powered by our Andornot Discovery Interface and hosted by Andornot.

Contact Andornot for information management and search solutions for your medical and other collections.

The Transportation Association of Canada (TAC) uses Inmagic DB/TextWorks to manage a library catalogue and databases of reports, manuals, and other literature related to transportation. The collection includes materials from governments, universities, associations and the private sector, both in Canada and abroad.

TAC approached Andornot to discuss upgrading the web search interfaces to their library databases to a more modern design with some new features. The existing interfaces, as well as the new ones, use Inmagic WebPublisher PRO for search and display, but were looking dated and didn't match the TAC website.

Andornot used our Andornot Starter Kit web interface for WebPublisher PRO to design new interfaces for three of TAC's DB/TextWorks databases. Each interface is available in both English and French, and the overall design matches the TAC website for a more integrated look. 

"The search interface for the library catalogue was functional but limited.  With few internal resources to dedicate to the project, we approached Andornot about using the Starter Kit to improve the appearance and features of the interface. The result was quickly achieved and a vast improvement over the previous forms.  I'm looking forward to seeing how members respond to these new search features." -- Glenn Cole, TAC Library

Key features of the sites include automatic stemming and ANDing of search words, browsable indexes, RSS feeds, book covers from Google when available, a selection list for saving items, and an interface that adapts to the user's screen size, so it's just as usable on a phone or tablet as on the desktop.

The three databases available online for public searching include:

1. The TAC Library Catalogue database contains over 25,000 documents from major Canadian transportation agencies as well as many international organizations. Items may be borrowed by those with a one-time need for them.
2. The Current Practices and Innovations database contains information on maintenance, construction, road safety and climate change.
3. The Canadian Surface Transportation Research database offers information on research about a wide range of transportation themes, such as economics, the environment, soils and materials, highway and bridge design, construction and maintenance, traffic engineering, vehicle studies and rail transportation.

Many resources in these databases are available for immediate access as PDFs.

Contact Andornot to discuss options for bringing your search interfaces up to modern standards.

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 Ottawa Jewish Archives joins a growing list of Jewish archives across the country whose collections are searchable online through the Canadian Jewish Heritage Network website: http://www.cjhn.ca

Established in 1969, the Ottawa Jewish Archives strives to maintain the collective memory of the Jewish Community of Ottawa by acquiring, preserving, and making accessible holdings which document the history, growth, and development of the Jewish community within Ottawa and the National Capital Region. 

With an archival collection that tells the story of community life in Ottawa from the 1890’s to the current day, the Archives contains a wide range of records relating to individuals and families, community organizations and events, congregations, and businesses. 

This is the first time that the holdings of the Ottawa Jewish Archives have been accessible online in the Archive’s 47 year history. 

"This is a major achievement for the Archives. Through modernization of access to our collections and advancement of our digital agenda, we can make the remote accessible and the hard to see visible. This project enables the Archives to more effectively meet user expectations, encourage discovery of our collections, and better deliver archives services." 

– Saara Mortensen, Archivist, Ottawa Jewish Archives. 

"This addition brings the archival holdings of a third Canadian province into the network; the Ottawa Jewish Archives being the first archive from Ontario to add information about its collections to our shared database." 

– Janice Rosen, Archives Director, Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives. 

(l-r) CJHN founding partners Janice Rosen and Shannon Hodge, with Ottawa Jewish Archives archivist Saara Mortensen.

Andornot helped the Ottawa Jewish Archives with adjustments to their DB/TextWorks-based archival records system. Andornot developed and hosts the CJHN.ca site based on our Andornot Discovery Interface search engine.

The Ottawa Jewish Archives was one of several recipients of the Library and Archives Canada Documentary Heritage Communities Program, which provides grants to select organizations for projects such as this.

Contact Andornot to discuss projects similar to this for your organization.