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About VuFind®

VuFind® is a discovery system designed and developed for libraries by libraries. It is also flexible enough to build search interfaces for all kinds of content beyond the library environment. The goal of VuFind® is to enable your users to search and browse through all of your resources in a single consistent and user-friendly interface. Content could include:

  • Catalog records
  • Institutional repository content
  • Open access journal articles
  • Digitized library materials
  • Websites
  • Items available for interlibrary loan
  • Licensed content (where supported by providers)
  • Other collections and resources — just add metadata!

VuFind® is completely modular and includes tools to support a wide range of use cases, from a basic Library catalog search to a sophisticated dashboard of data from many sources. It supports building a local index and/or integrating with a variety of existing third-party services. Since it's open source, you can modify or add modules to best fit your needs. A wide range of configurable options allow extensive customization without changing any code. An active and friendly international community and a variety of commercial service providers mean that you can get support when you need it.

Powerful and Flexible Search Capabilities

VuFind®'s search index runs on Apache Solr, an open source search engine, offering amazing performance and scalability. It has the ability to be distributed if you need to spread the load of the catalog over many servers or in a cloud environment. If you don't need to run your own local index, or if you want to complement it with third-party content, VuFind® can also talk to a variety of other tools and services.

Open Licensing

VuFind® is offered for free through the GPL open source license. This means that you can use the software for free. You can modify the software and share your successes with the community!

VuFind® in Action

Take a look at our VuFind® Installations Wiki page to see how a variety of organizations have taken advantage of VuFind®'s flexibility. If you are already using VuFind®, tell us about it through our Installation Report form.

Praise for VuFind®

"This completely rules, as you kids say." Peter Ivanick, Drexel University "I love the 'text this' option in the catalog. It saves paper, I don't have to find the scrap of paper I wrote on, and I don't have to wonder if I transposed the call number. (I just have to have my cell phone with me!) This is a great feature." Student, Villanova University
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