VISFACET: Facet Visualization Module for Modern Library Catalogues

The “next-generation” catalogues of academic libraries provide a discovery layer that contains faceted classification and search features and suggested topics selected by their rankings. To improve the discovery process, this paper demonstrates an interactive faceted visualization box, termed VisFacet, that extends the catalog interface and allows users to narrow or broaden their search results filtered by suggested topics or facets in an interactive manner. The VisFacet software visualization module was integrated into and contributed to the VuFind open source software system. VuFind is a development portal that enables libraries to customize their own catalogue interfaces and discovery layer. Thus, extending VuFind with VisFacet provides all catalogues using VuFind at their system’s core with the benefit of having an infographic interactive search box. We will describe the challenges encountered during the development of the VisFacet project, including the user discovery satisfaction questionnaire results.