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New Collections Search Interface

dhenry's picture

By David Henry - Posted on 18 August 2010

We recently launched a new faceted search interface to our collections using drupal and apache solr. http://collections.mohistory.org/search
It uses an adapted apachesolr module and a custom module. It also depends on an apache solr index. Collection items are 'lazy loaded' as drupal nodes as they are opened.

Much of the inspiration for this site comes from sessions at past Museums and the Web conferences - most notably the "Remote Data Strategies with Drupal" workshop in Indianapolis and the "Findability" talk by Nate Solas in Denver this year.

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nator's picture
Nice
Submitted by Nate Solas on August 18, 2010 - 10:24pm.

Very cool.  I especially like the way you've done the breadcrumbs for the search, along with the easy X to remove that facet.  Have you seen any difference in how people are using the site so far?

 

http://www.walkerart.org/

David Henry's picture
Too soon to tell.
Submitted by David Henry on August 19, 2010 - 9:03pm.

Thanks Nate.

We just launched a couple of weeks ago - so it's too soon to tell. One of the things I learned from your great workshop about ArtsConnectEd was the importance of adapting the interface based on user behavior. We're getting some statistics from SOLR and drupal but not enough to really make any changes yet.  We are also planning some further usability testing in the near future. 

David Henry

Web Developer

Missouri History Museum