Idaho Commission for Libraries

Not long ago, the Idaho Commission for Libraries announced that plans were underway for a format change to the LiLI Portal. Information, updates, and a link to the wireframe of the new format are available on our LiLI Portal Update webpage. The target date for implementation of the newly formatted portal have been rescheduled for January 1, 2010, to allow for more usability testing of the site. While staff are using January 1 as a target, actual release of the updated site may still be rescheduled.

In the meantime, some changes were made to the current portal site. In the last week, staff added a search box widget to search the LiLI Unlimited statewide catalog. This widget replaces the previous links to the LiLI-U catalog on the FirstSearch platform.

A couple years ago, OCLC released WorldCat.org. It is, in essence, the WorldCat database on a new open web platform. This year, OCLC released to us our statewide catalog, which is a subset of WorldCat, on that same web platform. The search box widget is a search on that new platform, it just has a much simplified interface for users. Once the initial search is performed using the search box, the user is redirected into the Idaho WorldCat interface. Instructions are available on the use of that interface.

The LiLI-U catalog, and all of WorldCat, still remain available through FirstSearch. Libraries wishing to continue use through FirstSearch may do so. Simply link to http://firstsearch.oclc.org in your browser and log in with your library’s authorization and password.