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Stillwater, OK - August 20, 2007 - The Oklahoma State University Libraries are pleased to unveil a new alternative catalog interface called BOSS: Big Orange Search System. We believe our users will find BOSS to be a more intuitive search interface, providing new ways to search, discover and refine results. The interface is powered by AquaBrowser® from Medialab Solutions BV, a world leader in visual faceted search.

Searching is easy; just enter a natural language term(s) in the single search box and hit enter. Results are ranked by relevance. Click a result title for more information. On the right is a list of options to refine results. On the left is the “word cloud,” suggestions to broaden a search based on associations, spelling variations, translations and a history trail of words you have clicked already. Our existing Voyager Online Catalog has been renamed “Classic Catalog,” and will remain available for patrons who wish to use it.

BOSS incorporates Indexed Content Enrichment (ICE)® from Syndetics Solutions, an R.R. Bowker company. ICE® provides book cover images, searchable tables of contents and summaries. For some titles, full-text reviews are also available. Adding this searchable content allows users to retrieve records for items previously “hidden” because keywords did not appear in the title or subject headings associated with a particular item. Table of contents also provide the convenience of browsing the book without having to pull it from the shelf.

Oklahoma State University is the first large academic research library in the United States to implement AquaBrowser® and ICE®. Additional enhancements will be implemented in the next six months including display of search results’ distribution by class/subclass, MyDiscoveries™ and federated searching of abstracting and indexing databases via the BOSS interface.

You may be wondering about the origins of the name BOSS: Big Orange Search System. After a naming contest among library employees, BOSS was selected as the most school-spirited nomination. At a university, where everything orange is great, we couldn’t let our new search system be left out.

You can try BOSS from links on our homepage, or by going directly to http://boss.library.okstate.edu.

About MyDiscoveries
MyDiscoveries™ is a new Social Library Experience, allowing users to contribute their own knowledge and opinions on library materials and services. This is beneficial for patrons and librarians alike; by reviewing, tagging and networking the user takes an active role in the catalog. Everyone in the community can contribute and share their knowledge through AquaBrowser®.

The mission of AquaBrowser® is to assist the library attain its role as the epicenter and sole institution to provide and safeguard knowledge. MyDiscoveries™ was created to take the next step: to give a role and a voice to the community, and to connect the people who create, organize and use the library’s resources, inside and outside the library. A library can opt to pre-populate the MyDiscoveries™ Social Library Experience with LibraryThing tags and ratings. The rich LibraryThing data includes more than 17 million tags and 2 million ratings on over 13 million books. AquaBrowser® makes the most of this rich data because it is the only library search solution of its kind that fully integrates user tags into the search, the discovery and the refine elements.

About Medialab Solutions & Aquabrowser
AquaBrowser is the world leader in visual faceted search that connects to any number of data sources. Its creators at Medialab Solutions, a Bowker company, focus all efforts toward creating successful searching solutions with invigorating passion to maintain all libraries as superior sources of information and knowledge. AquaBrowser can be found in libraries around the world, including over 130 library systems in the USA, libraries in the UK, Germany, Belgium, Spain and Italy and 80% of all public libraries the Netherlands. Today, nearly 2,000 library locations are serving over 60 million citizens worldwide with the visual AquaBrowser search and discovery experience. For more information about the company or to contact us, access www.aquabrowser.com.

About Syndetic Solutions
Syndetic Solutions, a Bowker company, is the leading supplier of descriptive content designed exclusively for library catalogs. Syndetics' services enable libraries to link to more than 8 million data elements, including cover images and a variety of data elements matching on more than 4.5 million ISBNs and UPCs. For additional information, visit www.syndetics.com or contact Syndetics at 877-737-9722.

About Bowker
Bowker is the world's leading source for bibliographic information. The company provides searching, analytical, promotional, and ordering services to publishers, booksellers, libraries, and patrons through national and international brands, including: Books In Print®, Global Books In Print®, Syndetic Solutions™, Pubnet®, PubEasy®, PubTrack™, AquaBrowser®, and more. In the U.S., Australia and Puerto Rico, Bowker is also the exclusive ISBN and SAN Agency and a DOI registration agency for the publishing industry. Bowker is headquartered in New Providence, New Jersey, with operations in East Grinstead, England, and Port Melbourne, Australia. For more company details, please visit www.Bowker.com.