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discovery_tool_vufind

VuFind


Vendor

OpenSource
http://vufind.org/index.php

Supported in the UK by:-
PTFS Europe (http://www.ptfs-europe.com/)
Contact:
Nick Dimant
Managing Director
PTFS Erope
nick.dimant@ptfs-europe.com
Mobile: +44 (0)7966 571704

VuFind is a library resource portal designed and developed for libraries by libraries. The goal of VuFind is to enable your users to search and browse through all of your library's resources by replacing the traditional OPAC to include:

  • Catalog Records
  • Locally Cached Journals
  • Digital Library Items
  • Institutional Repository
  • Institutional Bibliography
  • Other Library Collections and Resources


VuFind is completely modular so you can implement just the basic system, or all of the components. And since it's open source, you can modify the modules to best fit your need or you can add new modules to extend your resource offerings.

Power
VuFind runs on Solr Energy. Apache Solr, an open source search engine, offers amazing performance and scalability to allow for VuFind to respond to search queries in milliseconds time. It has the ability to be distributed if you need to spread the load of the catalog over many servers or in a server farm environment.

Licensing
VuFind is offered for free through the GPL open source license. This means that you can use the software for free. You can modify the software and share your successes with the community!

VuFind in Action
Take a look at our VuFind Installations Wiki page to see how a variety of organizations have taken advantage of VuFind's flexibility. If you are already using VuFind, feel free to edit the page and share your accomplishments.

Key Features

Search with Faceted Results
The search system allows for the user to search from a basic search box and then to be able to narrow down the results by clicking on the various facets of the results.

Live Record Status and Location with Ajax Querying
The search results page is able to display the live status of a record through the use of AJAX by querying the catalog at that exact moment. And since it is done through AJAX after the results have loaded, the page will not slow down for any reason.

“More Like This” Resource Suggestions
When viewing a record, the user will be offered suggestions of resources that are similar to the current resource.

Save Resources to Organized Lists
The user has the ability to save the resources from both the search results page and from the record view page to their own customizable lists. The lists can be retrieved at any time and will always be there for the user. This helps to eliminate the need for desktop based citation management software that tends to be too difficult for basic users. This makes it simple for all users!

Browse for Resources
The user has the ability to browse the catalog allowing them to explore what the library has rather than only being able to see a very narrow spectrum of results.

Author Biographies
The user can learn more about the author with contextual information and see all of the books that they have written in the library.

Persistent URLs
Allows the user to bookmark their queries or records to allow permanent access to a page they were once on.

Zotero Compatible
Your users can save and tag any records with Zotero or any other COinS based application so they can store their records in one place.

Internationalization
The interface has translations available in Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish and more. And if you want to create your own translation - it's easy. You can even create a new English translation if you want to change some of the wording used in the interface - it makes the UI that much easier to customize.

Access Your Data: Open Search, OAI, Solr
VuFind has many APIs to interact with the search, data and many other features. You can syndicate your record data with other institutions via an OAI server. You can search using vufind's algorithms via OpenSearch. And if you want complete access to your indexed data, you can interact with Solr, VuFind's backend search and index engine.

Customers

Please see the 'Discovery - Who uses what systems' section for an updated list.

discovery_tool_vufind.txt · Last modified: 2018/09/02 07:52 (external edit)