CLEVELAND, Ohio — CLEVNET is launching a new library catalog search engine that will give patrons a more user-friendly browsing experience for finding books, audiobooks, DVDs, magazines and more, the library consortium recently announced.
The new search function, Aspen Discovery, launches on Monday, Oct. 28, CLEVNET said in a news release. CLEVNET is a consortium of 47 library systems across the region.
The change-over should be seamless, and there’s no need to get a new library card, said Lyndsey Brennan, communications and marketing manager for Shaker Heights Public Library. The library is a CLEVNET member.
“You’ll enter your card number and PIN, which is the same as the previous one, and then from there just start to explore,” she said. “The interface is much more intuitive, so navigating around should be a little bit easier.”
The CLEVNET consortium leadership, not member libraries, made the decision to switch to Aspen, Brennan said.
Aspen Discovery includes features like predictive search text, curated lists, personalized recommendations, and greater control over user accounts, CLEVNET said.
Aspen Discovery also allows library users to:
- Filter search results by format, language and more
- Search results that are displayed in groupings, making it easier to find your preferred formats
- Create personal lists and save favorite searches
- Keep track of their borrowing history
- Get reading recommendations and find books similar to those already read
- Quickly find all of the books in a series
- Explore ratings, reviews, author biographies and more
Patrons’ current personalized lists of library materials will be copied on Sunday, Oct. 13 so they can be added to Aspen. “Please do not add additional titles to lists following this date, as changes made after Oct. 13 will not be copied to the new catalog,” the library consortium said.
Personalized lists can be accessed when Aspen Discovery goes live by logging into an account and clicking the Your Lists link.
Library patrons using the Record Your Checkout History function to track items that have been checked out in the previous catalog search system can still access it in Aspen Discovery by logging into their account and clicking the Reading History link.
CLEVNET is a consortium of 47 library systems across 12 counties that allows patrons to have access to collections of all participating libraries.
Anyone with a library card for a participating library can use CLEVNET to borrow materials, place holds and have items delivered to any participating CLEVNET library, and return CLEVNET materials to any library in the consortium.
Member libraries include Cleveland, Cleveland Heights-University Heights, Euclid, Rocky River and Twinsburg public libraries.
Julie Washington covers healthcare for cleveland.com. Read previous stories at this link.
