LibraryLinks Spring 2007
Libraries Implement New Visual Search Tool
By Angelique Jenks-Brown and Kate Bouman
Academe tends to focus on linguistic and logical/mathematical types of learning. But many people are visual learners. Visual search tools present large amounts of information in compact form and in several layers of detail. Search results are displayed according to easily discernible visual cues such as color, size, shape, and location, helping users decide what to examine and what to bypass. Patterns and connections between results become apparent.
We thought that a visual search tool would be particularly helpful
for beginning researchers,
freshmen and sophomores, who
often don’t go past the first page
of search results and miss important
information about context and categorization. 
After exploring
several options, we decided Grokker was the best fit for us.
Grokker is a federated visual search tool that provides both text clustering and a visual map, offering users a choice of how they
want to view their results. This tool provides a topical landscape
of context. It helps users focus their research by organizing concepts and revealing connections between topics.
The Grokker Implementation Task Force consisted of two librarians, Kate Bouman and Angelique Jenks-Brown; an information technology specialist, Tom Tran; and two consulting librarians, Alesia McManus and Dave Vose. Sandy Card served as a consultant for cataloging issues. Many other library staff members contributed to the success of the project by testing the product and providing feedback.
The implementation was done collaboratively between Grokker and Binghamton University Libraries. We are the first Aleph site to use Grokker and only one of two universities in the country to have it.
Angelique Jenks-Brown and Kate Bouman, members of the
Grokker implementation team, present a poster session on
Grokker at last year’s SUNYLA conference