The library collections

 An option in Bibis LMS is to have multilibraries and sub-libraries, or independent and subsidiary installations of several libraries. Multilibraries may redefine everything themselves, sub-libraries have a number of files (including the catalogue and the tables) in common. In both cases several collections can be made for the Bibis OPAC where the powerful search engine searches criss-cross through them. Only being able to search in one library or one collection is definitely a thing of the past, because with one single query the search engine can spread through several collections and combine the resulting hits into one hitlist. In Bibis LMS all the collections merge into one, as it were, and Verity searches in the 'ticked' libraries or other knowledge collections.

The Knowledge collections

The search engine functions as a sort of 'umbrella' program and Bibis LMS is therefore able to process far more than just library collections. Just the one interface is, however, sufficient for searching within various and differing collections. It does not matter whether these are DTP files such as Word or WP, databases with newspaper articles scanned in ClipworX, Lotus Notes, ASCII, HTML or PDF files. And just as with the library files, the same is true here: the more precise the query, the more specific the rankings list with the results. But even here what is produced is not a chaotic list, the hits from the various collections are presented in one list and the ten best always come first in your results window. The Bibis LMS title descriptions are presented to Verity as one sheet of documents, while with other collections probably many pages of full text are opened. For finding the knowledge, HTML could have been made for searching through the collections, and one and the same program finds its way through them without any trouble. It is possible to allow access to a knowledge collection for users on an individual basis. And if as many collections as possible are presented in PDF format, the user also gets each end result presented in the same format and so gets used to the presentation of, in this case, Adobe. In this way we maintain a consistent user-interface.