As we’ve noted often in posts and talks around the library, LIT is working on a new interface, Quicksearch beta, for searching records from two library catalogs: Orbis and Morris. We are currently soliciting input on prioritization of functionality development.  While we do this work it is worth noting that there are no plans to retire the Orbis and Morris interfaces.

The Solr-based Quicksearch beta is a very good simplified keyword search of catalog records. It offers superior relevancy ranking of search results. The faceted results it provides are useful for giving more visibility to the metadata in catalog records. However, it does not offer advanced searching at this time, and for some collections and staff advanced search is a necessity. Therefore, Orbis will remain a fully-supported production service, even as Quicksearch beta develops and becomes a more full-featured service. We will work toward a shift by  the spring semester 2016, where Quicksearch will drop its beta status and become the featured search on the library’s home page, but Orbis and Morris will still have important roles to play and will still be available and linked from the library’s home page.