The Alachua County Library District (ACLD) will officially launch its new online catalog on Wednesday, aiming for a more intuitive, unified system.  

The new catalog, Aspen Discovery, has been available for patrons to use for the past few weeks, but Wednesday marks the official switch.  

Paul Lightcap, senior library manager of Technical Services, said the district began looking for a new search catalog last year and started the contracting and implementation in the past three months. The current system has been in place since 2012 with a 2017 update.  

“We’ve really been sprinting through this,” Lightcap said. “The teams of folks that have worked here at the library have met regularly and worked an awful lot over the past few months.”   

Lightcap said companies like Google and Amazon have made more intuitive search experiences commonplace. The new catalog aims for a similar experience. 

Aspen lists all item formats in one place, so patrons can see the options with one glance. The current system lists a new item for each format, causing search results to spread out.    

Users can customize the experience by rating books, magazines and other checkouts. Aspen will cater results based on these ratings.  

Aspen also provides one search site for all library resources and third-party content. For example, with a library card, patrons can access more than half a million titles on Hoopla. But to search the options, patrons need to log into the Hoopla website.  

Now, the regular library catalog will show the third-party content on the normal search.  

Lightcap said the new catalog knocks down the silos that have separated the library’s resources. The new search feature even includes events.  

He said someone searching about planting or gardening might see a notice for an upcoming seed-sharing event. Patrons can add the event to their list and get notifications as the date approaches.  

The catalog also shows a link to local activities that might be of interest, with the Historic Thomas Center and Gardens popping up after a search for gardening.  

Lightcap said the ACLD, like others across the country, continues to see growing interest in digital formats—ebooks, downloadable audiobooks and online magazines.  

“There’s just massive growth for us [with digital items] in a way that we haven’t seen within like the rest of our collections quite as much,” Lightcap said. 

He said the initial checkouts of physical versus digital items have been even, but the digital offerings keep growing by around 15% year over year. Downloadable audiobooks have led the way as the highest growth area.  

Switching to the new Aspen catalog cost the district $23,150. Lightcap said so far the anecdotal feedback has been positive as patrons try the new system.  

“Fundamentally, we really just wanted to provide an improved, intuitive, usable interface for our patrons,” Lightcap said. “And I think our staff are reflecting in their comments to us that this seems like a success.”