Today is quite an important day for ALISS. It’s not exactly a launch, but it is the first time that the Engine will be seen supporting a new service.
In answer to those who ask what the ALISS Engine looks like, well it could look a bit like this…
We’ve built a small site in association with Renfrewshire Libraries, Renfrewshire Carers Centre, Engage Renfrewshire the Disability Resource Centre, RAMH and others to support Living Well @ the Library – a service developed to provide local community health and wellbeing information.
Volunteers and library staff will provide the information at drop-in sessions in local libraries using the site, which is powered by the Engine and only searches the links that the LW@TL community partners have contributed and curated. This will ensure that results are rich, local, relevant and current. It’s quite simple … pop in your postcode/place name and a keyword or two and the Engine serves up local organisations and activities.
For example search on ‘Paisley’ and ‘Heart’ and you’ll get a local charity shop, a booklist relevant to heart disease at the library and pointers to local organisations/support groups. Try the same search elsewhere and you’re likely to get less focussed results.
As with any data service, the results are only as good as the information found and added to the collection. We know we’ve missed things and the plan is for the local community to contribute new resources so that LW@TL remains current and relevant.
Remember that the results are intended to be local to Paisley and its surroundings. Search for info about Stirling and you won’t find much. But if you’d like to talk about creating something that gathers and provides information local to your area then do get in touch. Remember also that we’re not creating another local database… all of the resources being poured into the LW@TL collection become available to all thanks to the Engine.
Take a look and let us know what you think in the comments below.
Fantastic day! Great to hear the difference the MacMillan Cancer Support drop-in has made within the local community. With ALISS supporting the LW@TL/MacMillan service the information about local community services will only continue to grow, become richer and easier to find.
One service user said “services like this make you realise you are not alone, and that there is support available”. ALISS will play a great part in making this support more available.