New Brunswick isn’t just about lobsters, Acadian culture and amazing tidal heights, it is also about living a healthy lifestyle and the Horizon Health Network hopes to play a part in accomplishing that. 

The Horizon Health Network consists of four Zones, each with their own hospitals and libraries within those zones.  The hospital libraries have all used Inmagic software for many years but the recent amalgamation into one health region now allows them to share their resources across the region. The Fredericton/Upper River Valley Zone and the Moncton Zone have both had their catalogues on the web for sometime – under different names prior to the union.  The Miramichi and the Saint John Zones have now joined them and the library collections from all the Horizon Health Network Zones are searchable on the web both individually or all at once.  Each site uses Inmagic DB/TextWorks locally to manage their collections and Inmagic WebPublisher PRO on the web. 

  Using Andornot’s OneSearch application, all the catalogues can be searched simultaneously at:  http://hhn.andornot.com/.  The total number of hits for each Zone are displayed, with an ability to view each of the search results separately.   This is a huge time saver for both library staff and their end users.

A single template was used to coordinate the appearance of all the catalogues visually, while still allowing for individual identification on each Zone’s page.  The Andornot Starter Kit was used as a basis for all the sites, with all its features, including links to Google Books to show the book covers and to link to further information about the book’s content.  Ordering carts within each Zone’s catalogue permit users to request items from that Zone’s library providing a valuable extension of library services, especially for offsite employees. 

Lori Leger, the Regional Manager of Library Services for the Horizon Health Network, commented about the project,

“What a great team Andornot has been in pulling this together.  You were able to respond in such a timely manner when we requested quotes, and followed up with your commitment to provide the OneSearch interface within the stated timeline. Input on our end was minimal; you took on the project and ran with it.”

We have just released an upgrade to the desktop version of our Andornot Archives Starter Kit. This was formerly known as Archives Online and is an add-on to Inmagic DB/TextWorks for managing archival accessions and descriptions.

The Archives Starter Kit is designed to allow quick and easy creation of databases for archival accessions and descriptions and is especially suited to small- and medium-sized archives with limited IT resources. It is designed to comply with the following archival standards:

• Canadian Rules for Archival Description (RAD)  
• International Standard for Archival Description (ISAD)

The Archives Starter Kit includes ready to use databases for:

• Accessions
• Descriptions
• Contacts (i.e. donors, researchers suppliers, volunteers etc.)
• Research Requests
• Subject thesaurus populated with nearly 5,000 English terms from the Government of Canada Core Subject Thesaurus as of May 2010. These terms can be deleted or modified and are included to provide a starting point for building a local thesaurus.
• Name Access thesaurus
• Geographic Thesaurus which can be populated with local provincial entries from the Geobase Canadian Geographical Names Data Base (CGNDB).
• Profiles (to fill various forms with the institution address and contact names).

The databases can be adopted as-is, or customized for specific needs. They can also be augmented with other databases available through Andornot's mix and match options. For example,you can add on databases managing artifacts, a library catalogue, donations, provenance, records management and more. Reports include forms for printing deeds of gift or loan; hierarchical finding aids and an EAD XML report.

Our Archives Starter Kit - web version has also recently been updated. The web version allows you to create a web interface to your descriptive data quickly and easily. While the web interface is based on the fields in the Archives Starter Kit fields it can be easily modified to use fields from any DB/TextWorks archival database instead.  An alternate web interface is also available for schools or for organizations with just digitized resources, and features gallery style search results. We can also create a customized interface to suit your needs, and blend it with your website template or content management system.

Existing users of Archives Online version 2 and 3 may be able to upgrade for free. You will need a recent copy of DB/TextWorks – preferably the current version which is v12, however version 10 and up should also work. If you have an older version please contact us for upgrade pricing.   If your databases or forms have been customized since your original purchase, these changes may need to be replicated or merged into the new version. Upgrade assistance is of course available on a consulting basis.  Contact us to receive a copy of the upgrade instructions to see whether you would be able to handle this yourself or would need our help.

Brad Morrison, Archives Manager for Sidney Museum & Archives recently upgraded from Archives Online version 2 purchased in 2003 and writes that “One of the marked improvements over the previous version is the Digital Asset data entry screen, wherein the ability now to satisfactorily catalogue, describe and view our photographic collection is becoming a significant asset in assisting our cliental.  I just want to thank you again for developing and providing us with this useful archival tool which makes my day to day job so much easier to accomplish.”

Read more details on our website; let us know if you would like to set up a time for a demo; or contact us for more information and pricing.

Grey literature, fugitive publications, the hidden web; it sounds all very mysterious doesn’t it? Where are these resources? How can they be found? Well for the folks in Alberta – and because it is on the Internet, for the rest of the world – this previously concealed material in the non-profit and social services “third” sector now has a home at threeSOURCE: http://www.threesource.ca. See the press release here.

Database

The database that forms the basis of the site contains a vast quantity of grey literature from groups such as the Alberta Federation of Labour, Alberta Status of Women Action Committee, Family Service Association of Edmonton, Calgary Status of Women Action Committee, and Families First Edmonton. It also contains the ESPC catalogue collection, which during the course of the project was converted from another system, L4U, using the MARC Transformer, into Inmagic DB/TextWorks.

Jennifer Hoyer from the Edmonton Social Planning Councilspearheaded this new website with funding assistance from Alberta Culture and Community Spirit and the Edmonton Community Foundation.

“There is currently no central location, either physically or virtually, for accessing publications created within or about this field of work.  People working within the third sector – in social services and nonprofits – are notoriously short on time when it comes to finding information and staying current within their field.  ThreeSOURCE hopes to make this process easier by presenting a one-stop-shop,” writes Jennifer.

Website

Andornot assisted with almost every aspect of this site, from the recommendation of Artisteer as the basis for the website graphic design, which Jennifer took to enthusiastically, to the deployment of the site on the ESPC server. Our team integrated the website design into the ASP.NET based Umbraco Content Management System. We set Jennifer up with the desktop interface of the Andornot Starter Kit so she could catalogue grey literature while we developed the web interface. This included the database component, which consisted of the quick and advanced search screens, brief displays, a full display, Google book covers, a RSS feed for the latest database additions, and the Email, Save, and Print components. The web catalogue uses Inmagic WebPublisher PRO as the underlying search engine.

Content Management System

Once the website was up and running on our development server with Umbraco, Jennifer could login through a web browser and start adding website content to the site. Andornot put the final touches to the site, such as a link to their newsletter sign in and an RSS feed from the database and then moved the whole site over to the ESPC server.

“One of the key features of this audience is that they generally access and share information in a very social way: they discuss the latest developments in their field over coffee with colleagues, and they share new publications with their email contacts,” writes Jennifer. “We wanted to replicate this social aspect in some manner, and the RSS feed of New Acquisitions is a starting point for engaging our audience beyond the library catalogue interface.”

Topic Searches

Using Umbraco, Jennifer is able to quickly add new canned or topic searches to the home page, which can be based on recent requests for information or hot topics. To illustrate, Jennifer writes:

“We were recently approached for information regarding affordable housing solutions for seniors, to support a proposal for a related project.  A quick search of subjects such as “Seniors” and “Housing – affordable housing solutions” brought up the Wellesley Institute’s recent report on Precarious Housing in Canada (2010) and the Canadian Centre on Disability Studies Analysis of housing for seniors living with disabilities using a livable and inclusive community lens (2009).  The former provides federal government funding allocations towards housing for low-income seniors.  The latter identifies affordability as a top major housing issue faced by seniors and seniors with disabilities, and pointed towards other publications confirming the urgent nature of this issue.”

She promptly added a link to all the items in the database on the topic Housing for Seniors after receiving that request for information. We are sure that the page will soon fill up with links to other relevant topics as they are determined, making the finding of relevant information in the third sector so much easier.

Congratulations to the Edmonton Social Planning Councilon the launch of this valuable resource.  Contact us for more information on project specifics. 

The McGill University Health Center (MUHC) online patient education library or MUHC Health Education Collection (HEC) is now publicly available.  This virtual consumer health library offers a wide and growing range of bilingual educational material, developed by healthcare professionals.   See the press release and about the collection for further information.

The Health Education Collection can be found at:
http://infotheque.muhc.ca – English Site
http://infotheque.cusm.ca – French Site

Andornot began working with MUHC on this project in 2007, and the site has been available for MUHC staff only for more than a year while the collection was being developed. We are delighted that the site is now public as it contains not only useful information, but also has some very neat features.

The collection includes:

• Full-text documents created by health care professionals at the McGill University Health Centre.
• Links to full-text documents created by other reliable organizations on the World Wide Web.
• Information about resources that are available on-site at the MUHC affiliated hospitals.

Behind the scenes, the application is hosted on Andornot servers and uses Inmagic WebPublisher PRO for both searching and data entry. Reached via two different URLs, the French and English sides of the site are actually one and the same; and bilingual functionality is provided via resource files easily editable by authorized MUHC staff.

The secure admin interface, accessible via a web browser, allows authorized staff to search on every field or combination of fields and to add or edit records.

   

On the public site search results are filtered according to record status, and only selected publicly accessible records are displayed. Users accessing the site from an authorized IP address however, may view additional restricted access records.

The site also features a “Did you mean” option so that for certain common medical terms a link is displayed to guide users to search using the preferred term. This is an additional database that is searched concurrently and which can also be expanded to include common misspellings. Query logging has been enabled on the site to help with the ongoing process of adding terms to this list based on actual search terms input by users.

In order to facilitate improving content, end users are able to comment and rate each resource. These comments are moderated and the admin interface provides options to review all pending comments in order to approve or delete them.

“Andornot has consistently exceeded my expectations in terms of product development and customer service. When we first approached Andornot with this project, we had several unique features that required extensive customization of WebPublisher Pro, including our “Did You Mean” feature and our database’s full bilingual functionality. Andornot not only rose to these challenges, but exceeded them by providing us with elegant and versatile solutions. [Matthew Flanagan, Health Education Collection Librarian / Bibliothécaire de l’Infothèque]

Working with MUHC staff on this project has been a pleasure. We extend our heartfelt congratulations to them on the public launch of an excellent resource.  Contact Andornot for more information.

UFA Co-operative Limited celebrated their centennial last year and has created a virtual exhibit, 101 Years of Enriching Rural Life which features artifacts, music and an interactive display.   In 1909, farmers across Alberta joined together to create a co-operative that would improve conditions for agricultural producers and bring modern conveniences to rural areas. From 1921-1935 UFA was a political party and formed the provincial government, and since then it has expanded into businesses including agriculture, petroleum, construction and outdoor adventure.  UFA now has 120 locations throughout Alberta, BC and Saskatchewan.

The centennial exhibit is travelling throughout rural Alberta, often to very small centres with no resources or technical support to set up a public internet connection in the local museum.  The UFA archives uses Inmagic DB/TextWorks and the Andornot Archives Starter Kit to manage their archival accessions, descriptions and artifacts, so they asked us if we could help create a display of their photos and digitized documents.

Our solution was to use the free, search only, version of DB/TextWorks. This has been loaded onto the PC that gets shipped around to the various locations along with its display stand and monitor.  We created a subset of the textbase with a specially designed menu screen and display forms.   All the menu screen links were to saved sets within the database and the Options were set to always show results in the Report window to avoid users ever seeing a query screen.   Virtually all the icons were stripped off the toolbars, and script buttons added for users to navigate through the records viewing descriptive information and the images themselves.  This ensures that people who have never seen DB/TextWorks before can simply click to view information.

The image file paths had to be batch modified for the subset exhibit database and of course any changes had to be made using the full version of DB/TextWorks. This meant a lot of copying over textbases again every time a minor change was needed.  Designing for the low resolution small monitor for the travelling exhibit was also a challenge. However, now that the procedure is in place, the database can be updated to add new material regularly, ie. for a new town on the exhibit circuit.

“The exhibit has been popular and importantly is easy for people to use.  The staff member at the exhibit's current location had extremely little computer experience and was quite comfortable exploring the database within minutes. The United Farmers Historical Society (UFHS) is pleased that it was able to utilize the software it already owned  and records that had been previously created;  Andornot's solution saved UFHS both time and money.” [Carolyn Foard, History Coordinator, UFA Co-operative Limited.]

The DB/TextWorks search-only version can also be used to master DVDs for distribution or to provide a search only version of the textbases for public use.  Check out the DB/TextWorks online help under Run-time version or contact Andornot for more information.  Ultimately most organizations would choose to use WebPublisher PRO to provide a web based search interface to their databases, but this project shows what is still possible with limited resources!