1 / 38

Next-Gen Catalogs Are Only Half Part of the Solution

Andrew Nagy, Serials Solutions Scott Garrison, Western Michigan University. Next-Gen Catalogs Are Only Half Part of the Solution. Villanova’s background. Master’s level private Catholic university Undergrad enrollment = ~6,000 One main library ~850,000 bibliographic records

levi
Download Presentation

Next-Gen Catalogs Are Only Half Part of the Solution

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Andrew Nagy, Serials Solutions Scott Garrison, Western Michigan University Next-Gen Catalogs Are Only Half Part of the Solution

  2. Villanova’s background • Master’s level private Catholic university • Undergrad enrollment = ~6,000 • One main library • ~850,000 bibliographic records • ~300 subscription databases • Voyager, SFX, MetaLib

  3. WMU’s background • Carnegie research university • Undergrad enrollment = 25,000+ • 5 libraries serving multiple sites statewide • 1.6M+ bibliographic records • 400+ databases • 4,500+ print journals • 42,000+ online journals • Voyager, SFX, CONTENTdm, Luna

  4. The Problem

  5. OPAC silo • Hasn’t kept up with Web, users’ expectations • Limited customization • Antiquated, rigid search technologies • Designed for known-item searching • Libraries have set expectations, learned to compensate accordingly

  6. Ejournal and database silos • More every year in multiple packages • More alternatives, more confusion • Multiple A-Z lists to maintain, use • Interfaces change regularly • Query syntax varied, requires instruction??? • “The version of ______ I teach is _______”

  7. Silo fatigue

  8. Cross-silo federated search • Allows some general, discipline searching • Mixed, incomplete results • As slow as the slower silos • If local, very network-inefficient • Many different metadata schemas, less sophisticated searching

  9. Changing marketplace • Vendor acquisitions, consolidation, catch-up • Open source options are emerging • Some products are still years away • All of the above leads to great FUD

  10. “Discovery” dis⋅cov⋅er [di-skuhv-er] –verb (used with object) 1. to see, get knowledge of, learn of, find, or find out; gain sight or knowledge of (something previously unseen or unknown): to discover America; to discover electricity. 2. to notice or realize: I discovered I didn't have my credit card with me when I went to pay my bill. 3. Archaic. to make known; reveal; disclose.

  11. Discovery layer • Searching for the 21st century • Built on 21st century technology • Highly configurable interfaces • Puts our metadata to better use • Works for OPAC and other silos but relies on federated search, though evolving

  12. User expectations • Broad discovery of both known and unknown items in our collections, not just in their discipline • Be more like Google: simple, easy, fast • fewer places to look for more kinds of content • big recall is OK as long as most relevant is first • get to the actual item in fewest clicks possible

  13. The Next-Generation Catalog

  14. What does it do? • Provides simple, easy access to the library’s local collections • Supplements “classic” OPAC • Refines searches with “facets” • Includes external sources and community features • Wikipedia, tagging

  15. Examples • Open source • VuFind • Blacklight • eXtensible Catalog • built on Lucene/Solr/Drupal • Commercial • AquaBrowser • WorldCat Local • Primo • Encore • Endeca

  16. VuFind • Mellon Award for Technology Collaboration winner 2008! • ILS-agnostic, runs alongside OPAC • Works for libraries of all sizes • Uses Apache Solr and AJAX • Feature rich • text messaging, Wikipedia author biographies, tagging and commenting, public lists

  17. VuFind at WMU • alpha fall 2008, beta spring 2009, “1.0” fall 2009 • Customized the source in a variety of ways • SolrMARC importer, Voyager driver • search definitions, indexes, facet display • Usability tested 2008-2009 • Still tweaking our indexes, relevance • “1.2” version coming spring 2010

  18. VuFind at WMU • Has helped us around limitations in Voyager • Recall => huge adjustment for librarians • Has prompted us to reconsider how we work • Themes from usability testing • fewer failed searches • user less likely to give up searching • users curious about things like tagging

  19. VuFind at WMU

  20. What do users want and need?

  21. One compelling starting place • Librarians, users • will use Amazon to find and discover • will use Google to find and discover • will use del.icio.us to find and discover • Then they use the library catalog/website to find out if the library has it (link resolver buttons help even if it’s in five silos)

  22. Services • Local index of collections: MARC, OAI, etc. • Simple, elegant interfaces • Customizable • Mashups • Tuned relevancy ranking • Facets • Citation management tools • Links to value-adds like ILL, recommenders

  23. Discovery can go further • Why only local collections? • What about article content? • What if users want to discover items outside their discipline-specific databases? • Can’t we do better than federated search?

  24. Web-Scale Discovery

  25. “Web-scale discovery” Web-scale dis⋅cov⋅er [web skeyl di-skuhv-er] - adjective-noun pairing Harvesting, ingesting, and normalizing an extensive amount of container and subcontainer metadata in a scalable infrastructure that many institutions can share rather than traditional “hosted services”.

  26. aka “Unified Discovery Service” • Unifies local and subscription content • digital or physical books, e-journal articles, databases, etc. • library catalog, publishers, open access, etc. • Web-scale repository • Highly tuned relevancy • Pluggable API for “shopping mall” access

  27. Summon architecture

  28. Summon so far at WMU • March 2009: became beta partner • April 2009: delivered catalog records • May 2009: had Summon instance • June 2009: used internally, refined e holdings • Summer 2009: kept improving • September 2009: linked to it on our site • Fall 2009: user testing

  29. Summon so far at WMU

  30. Summon so far at WMU • Even bigger adjustment for library staff • Has reminded us of record problems • Shows known OpenURL target problems • How to present it along with VuFind? • the NGC is a subset of the W-sD • we’ve already tweaked the NGC pretty far • W-sD’s interface is similar to NGC • how to incorporate link resolver data?

  31. Option 1 • Keep the NGC for containers and W-sD for everything else • use limits in query string to exclude containers • means two separate, different interfaces to choose from

  32. Option 1

  33. Option 1

  34. Option 2 • Use your NGC’s interface to query the W-sD’s index • radio button for containers vs. non? • unified results, or tabs? • limits you to NGC’s interface? Toggle? • opportunity to tweak the NGC closer to W-sD • subjects and other facets likely vary between them

  35. Option 2

  36. Option 3 • Use only the W-sD and scrap the NGC • impractical after heavy NGC investment and adjustment

  37. Option 4 • Use the APIs you have for the NGC, W-sD, and link resolver and build your own mashup of all of them • requires a heavy investment of resources • involves merging functional requirements for three separate systems into one • requires very careful project management, keeping scope creep, long tail issues to a minimum

  38. Thank you • questions? • andrew.nagy@serialssolutions.com • scott.garrison@wmich.edu

More Related