unlocking your library's collection

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unlocking your library's collection Prague,
9th September 2008
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Who am I ?

• Thomas Fiebig
• Regional Sales Manager Central and Eastern
  Europe
• Bowker (UK) Ltd

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A brief overview of Bowker

• Founded in 1893
• Part of the Cambridge Information Group, USA,
• the owners of ProQuest
• Recently acquired Medialab in 2007, the creators
  of AquaBrowser
• Flagship products Aquabrowser,
  Syndetic Solutions
• and Global Books in Print
• Head Office located in New Providence, New
  Jersey, USA
• UK / International Office located in East
  Grinstead, UK

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Agenda

• 1. An introduction to AquaBrowser ?
• 2. The challenges facing libraries and
  AquaBrowsers response
• 3. Syndetic Solutions
• What is it and how does it work with
  AquaBrowser ?
• 4. View AquaBrowser reference sites
• 5. What support is available and how does the
  implementation work
• 6. How much is AquaBrowser likely to cost

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An Introduction to AquaBrowser

• A search engine offering a fun way of
  exploring the
• librarys collection (OPAC, databases,
  federated tools...)
• A solution that combines free-text retrieval
  techniques, visual
• associative search and faceted category
  navigation
• Offers the user an attractive and stimulating
  interface
• Based on three design principles
• Search, Discover, Refine
• Lots of fun to use !

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What are the challenges facing libraries ?

• 80 of users do not know exactly what they are
• looking for
• People have become accustomed to the
• Google-Experience, whereby people run a
  search using
• a single search box and expecting instant
  relevance-ranked results
• Library management want to lower pressure on
  staff as well as
• deploy them as efficiently as possible

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What are the challenges facing libraries ?

• OPACs demand exact queries and are also weak
  at
• discovery and user engagement, leaving the
  user
• frustrated.
• People tend to make spelling mistakes / typos
  when
• entering a query
• MARC is a frightening concept and the user
  does not
• always know how to use the metadata in your
  OPAC

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Aquabrowsers response to these challenges

• Aquabrowsers stimulating search, discover,
  refine
• interface enables the user to find the hidden
  content
• in your library
• Single search box makes the user feel at
  home by
• offering a Google-like search experience
• Aquabrowser recognizes spelling mistakes and
  points the
• the user in the right direction
• Aquabrowser can integrate both external and
  other internally
• available information resources

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Aquabrowsers response to these challenges

• Although AquaBrowser displays marc records as
  well as title
• information in a visually stimulating way and
  therefore does not
• scare the user away from the library
• AquaBrowser used in conjunction with Syndetic
  Solutions
• enhances the user experience even further
  through the display of
• tables of contents, first chapters, reviews
  etc.
• AquaBrowser makes it easier for the user to
  find what they are
• looking for and encourages them to explore the
  librarys catalogue,
• thereby lowering pressure on library staff

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Familiar single search box. Locates sources
inside and outside your library
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• Visual map or word cloud compares
• users search to metadata in the OPAC
• The words are suggestions for the
• user to discover new information and
• to formulate a new query

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Filter or refine queries to find specific
information, e.g specific subject, author, type
of resource etc.
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Whether a user refines or discovers, the
original query is preserved as part of the
search. Entering a new query into the search box
starts a fresh search
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External Sources
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Full bibliographic record
Link to the librarys issue system
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The Aquabrowser Control Panel
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Numbers of Sessions
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Most popular refine options
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Popular items sorted by number of hits
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Further Options

• Import of any XML/MARC structured data file
• Internal Databases
• External Databases
• Federated search
• New Module My Discoveries, the Social Library.

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Syndetic Solutions - A brief overview

• Syndetic Solutions is a catalogue enrichment
  service
• offering a wealth of data elements such as
  cover images,
• tables of contents, annotations, author notes,
  reviews etc.
• Founded in 1998 and later acquired by Bowker
  in 2004
• Now integrated into Bowkers bibliographic
  data stream,
• increasing UK and international content
• A neutral solutions compatible with any ILS
  and AquaBrowser
• Requires virtually no library resources for
  implementation

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Syndetic Solutions A brief overview

• A market leader with more than 2.000 customers
• worldwide
• Offers enrichment for over 5.7 Million Titles
  including
• - over 2.8 Million Cover Images
• - over 2.6 Million summaries
• - over 1 Million Tables of content
• - 280.000 first chapters and excerpts
• - 750.000 reviews from various sources
• - 180.000 Author notes as well as 66.000
  books in a series
• Enrichment available in English, German,
  Italian, Spanish and Swedish

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Cover Images
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Summary
Table of Contents
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Syndetics ICE A brief Overview

• Works like Syndetic Solutions, but makes the
  contents searchable
• Syndetics ICE Options include
• - Tables of Contents
• - Annotation Enrichment
• - Fiction Profiles
• - Customised Fiction Connection
• - Title Link
• is a turn-key solution which requires no
  maintenance and can easily be
• combined with standard Syndetic Solutions

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Normal OPAC would not have found these results as
they are in TOCs and Summaries
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Nellie Wong underlined in TOC
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Aquabrowser Reference Sites

• 1. Oklahoma State University http//boss.library
  .okstate.edu/
• 2. Carroll County Public Library
  http//aqua.carr.org/
• 3. Columbus Metropolitan Library
  http//catalog.columbuslibrary.org/
• 4. University of Chicago http//lens.lib.uchicag
  o.edu/
• 5. Croydon College http//titan.croydon.ac.uk/ipo
  int/
• 6. Amsterdam Public Library http//www.oba.nl/
• 7. Queens Library http//aqua.queenslibrary.org/
  

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Where does Aquabrowser sit within the market
place ?

• Currently a unique Search and Discovery
  Solution
• Possible competitors Exlibriss Primo and
  Microsofts Fast
• Established solution with over 300 Customers
  worldwide
• Market Leader in the Netherlands
• Aquabrowser (Medialab B.V) once a wholly owned
  subsidiary of
• Phillips
• Customer base is increasing rapidly

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Aquabrowser Support

• A dedicated and highly qualified support team
  is available
• Available Monday Friday 800am 500pm
• Online support via Basecamp as well as
  telephone and e-mail support
• Based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• English-speaking
• Included in the annual service fee

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Implementation Plan

• Will take approximately 8 weeks to implement
• Main task for library is to provide bibliographic
  records
• Consultation with key staff prior to
  implementation and after the first deliverable
• Implementation document
• Comprehensive training available for library
  staff

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Aquabrowser Pricing

• The price you pay for Aquabrowser depends on a
  number of variables.
• The most important ones are the size and type of
  library you are
• Academic Library based on the number of titles
  in your collection
• Public Libraries based on the size of the
  community you serve
• In addition to that there are options which are
  charged as a percentage
• of the original one-off licence fee such as
• The Spider Module
• The Federated Search Module
• My Discoveries

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Summary Aquabrowser.....

• Benefits for the user
• Enables the user to run high quality searches
• has an attractive, visually stimulating interface
• Offers the Google-Experience the user expects
• Search, Discover, Refine concept ensures
  there are no dead-ends
• Recognizes typos / spelling mistakes

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Summary Aquabrowser.....

• Benefits for your team
• Lowers pressure on staff through
  self-sufficient users
• creates happy users
• increases usage of your collection
• will increase the number of loans you make
• can integrate both internal and external
  data resources
• get information on user behaviour

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Summary Aquabrowser...

• Benefits for the Systems Administrator
• is easy to install and configure
• can easily integrate with internal and
  external data sources
• is compatible with virtually any ILS
• no ongoing maintanence required
• ongoing support provided

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for more information www.aquabrowser.com sales
_at_bowker.co.uk  
Many Thanks for listening !