IUG — new stuff in 2006

Given that I sometimes give III a bit of a hard time (which I think is part of our job as users) — I thought I would note some of the very cool things that are out in the 2006 general release:

  • RightResults(tm): III’s new relevance ranking algorthem.  I’d talked about this earlier — but this is very cool.  Actually getting your results back in some kindof useable order — what a concept.
  • Spelling Suggestions:  This was very well done.  They took the basic spell checking format and then enhanced it allowing for multiple suggestions and combinations of suggestions.
  • Web Edit:  This is a web-based cataloging client.  Its basically a poor man’s Connexion — but for what it does within the catalog and the potential areas of use — this is a pretty nifty new product. 
  • RSS (input and output):  For free, III will include an RSS reader in the new WebPac.  For a fee, you can purchase a new product called Feed Builder to create newbook lists, etc.  I’m not too thrilled that this is a fee-based product, but the fact that they have finally got this working is great.
  • User Reviews:  Users can now put reviews on books (in addition to ratings (from 2005))
  • Research Pro updates:  Metafind has been renamed and improved.  They still are licensing the software/connectors from Muse Global — but they have done some development that has made their software better and allowed users a bit more flexibility in how the interface is developed.
  • WebPAC Pro — this is the new webpac platform

III has released a number of other new features and enhancements — but these have been the one’s that caught my eye (and that I’m remember off the top of my head).  I have been pretty impressed by some of the ILS improvements that they have pushed out this time around. 

–tr


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