Credo Reference

If there was one word you could use to describe the newly designed interface from the Credo Reference web platform it would be ‘malleable’. From the ability to conduct thoroughly detailed searches in a range of multifaceted ways, to determining your administrative parameters, Credo Reference offers the potential for plenty of customisation ­ far too much to list in detail here.

Because Credo Reference is promoted as solution for learners and librarians, it has to be easy enough for novices to use while still being able to handle the most complex search criteria at the hands of a dedicated information professional.

That is a tricky task to accomplish for any platform. How do you include the time-saving jargon of the library professional to provide quick access, while still catering for those who may not be quite as adept?

The answer in part is through designing the interface to be user-friendly and thoughtful, as it is here.

Credo say that many of the new features in the overhauled platform have been introduced after feedback and testing conducted with librarians. Having used this source thoroughly, I can confirm it is no empty boast.

Once through the home page to engage in a search, you get the simple option of entering a term in the search field and then choosing where in the site to look for it.

The default option (although this can be changed) in the test configuration was a search across all subjects. This covers the typical academic disciplines but also searches through a huge range of reference material in the many dictionaries and encyclopaedias available.

Just below these options is the very handy Related Resources, which will point towards any sources your library might have access to; for example, in the subscription I was set up with, links to Google Scholar, Worldcat and Oxford Music Online were made available.

What is particularly handy is that the researcher can easily take their s earch beyond the confines of Credo Reference’s material without having to be interrupted needlessly. It all flows rather nicely.

Once it has returned the search results, Credo Reference really begins to gear up. This is in part due to the Related Entries option, which is the heart and soul of the platform. Related Entries consist of similar resources, subjects, types and websites, although there are many more. Digitised books, images, videos, search tools and access to helpful Web 2.0 tools for sharing and bookmarking results are all present and accounted for. The option to use Credo Reference in a variety of languages is also available, as is the option for scholars to easily save and manage their citation material in a number of formats.

What makes Credo Reference such an excellent tool is that the well-developed cataloguing of related material and commonsense design encourages users to explore every avenue available in their search. It’s almost as if it wants you to discover more.

Search technology often talks about drilling down through information, which calls up an image of hard labour and a blind path. The alternative on offer here is of exploration: an opening of doors to other avenues of information. You really feel the interface working for you rather than merely just with you.

Further results come to you in context, clear and obvious. And imagery is typically presented with the most appropriate highest-scoring results, while the searched keyword is highlighted throughout the summaries under each returned result.

Existing users of Credo Reference may be familiar with the Concept Map, a visualisation tool similar in style to mindmaps, which Credo says is intended to help highlight and understand the relationships between various topics.

Initially, I was wowed by the design. The screenshot shown here may look me ssy on the printed page, but on screen it’s a fluid logical tool. For example, the way the various searched paths that you are using are shaded differently and respond to where you are navigating to make it pleasing to use. The “messy” part is largely ignored by your mind and doesn’t interfere with the task in hand; every element of the display can be modified, stretched and shrunk back again easily.

The moment I took a false step and wanted to go back to a previous search track was where I first came unstuck, at least until I realised that the Concept Map had helpfully kept that search to one side (listed under the Nodes Visited menu at the side) and within a click I was back up and running.

It is tempting to write this part of Credo Reference off as a flashy and unnecessary piece of gimmickry, but I can see myself coming back repeatedly to use the tool for the simple reason that it is so helpful in seeing how certain topics are related to others.

Credo Reference inspires the task of searching. Given that it was developed in-house, it is a testament to how the rest of the site has been designed in accordance with what Credo’s users want from their system.

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