West Vancouver Archives Gives Search Website a “Tune-Up”

Published Aug 8, 2012

The West Vancouver Archives has been using Inmagic DB/TextWorks and WebPublisher PRO to manage their archival collections and provide public search access for many years.

With a grant this year from the BC History Digitization Program, the archives was able to have Andornot give the search website a “tune-up”, adding some new features and improving some existing ones.

We added Google Analytics and enabled WebPublisher PRO query logging to help obtain a picture of how users interact with the website and what they search for.
We added permalinks and an AddThis “Share” button to allow users to more easily bookmark and share information found by their searches.
We added a simple “Email us a comment about this record” link to allow users to provide feedback, corrections and other information on records.
We added the Andornot selection list application so that users can add items to a temporary list as they search, then email, save or print the list, as well as submit a request to the archives for more information. (This feature can also be extended to allow ordering of photographic reprints, for example).
We tidied up some of the search and results pages to make searching easier and results clearer to view and navigate.

“I’m very pleased we were able to add these features within the budget I had available,” says Shaunna Moore, Archivist at the West Vancouver Archives. “I immediately had requests for particular records, and comments from users who provided additional information about our materials. The new functionality has improved our understanding of how our website is being used and streamlined our interactions with researchers.”

You can try out the new features here.