An example of a catalog using facets

Professor Kim sent me an example of a "faceted" library catalog after class yesterday, and asked that I pass it on to you.

NCSU Libraries Unveils Revolutionary, Endeca-Powered Online Catalog

The NCSU Libraries announced the first library deployment of a revolutionary new online catalog... The NCSU Libraries' new catalog allows users to browse their results along pre-defined facets with context-specific values automatically generated from the results set itself. These dynamic navigation schemes and search refinement options are made possible by the Endeca ProFind™ platform, which takes advantage of all of the relationships in the catalog data and how those relationships themselves relate to each other. Resembling what librarians call "faceted classification," this data-driven approach reflects the multiple ways any resource can be described, rather than its location in a rigid hierarchy of categories.