The Sakaibrary Project – Technical Underpinnings: Searching

1. The Sakaibrary Project – Technical Underpinnings: Searching Steve Smail Gaurav Bhatnagar 6 Dec 2006

2. Components of Search • OKI Repository OSID • Search interface • OSID Provider • Metasearch Repository OSID implementation • Ex Libris MetaLib, SirsiDynix SingleSearch • OSID Consumer • Sakai Citation Service

3. Components of Search Diagram • search • merge • present • Sakai Citation Service • Search Manager • Citation Manager • getAssetsBySearch() • hasNextAsset() • nextAsset()

4. Sakaibrary Agreements • It’s common for Repository implementations to make use of Out Of Band Agreements to describe: • The type of Repository • Examples: Metasearch, DSpace • Ways that data can be found • Examples: Keyword search, by content type • The nature of the data available • Examples: Date, author, URL

5. Sakaibrary Agreements • Additional agreements were suggested by our use of asynchronous meta-search technology. We need to exchange information regarding: • Metasearch access • Location and Authorization details • Display properties • Page size, sorting • Search status • Global details: total hits, total records fetched, etc.

6. Sakaibrary Agreements • Additional agreements (continued) • Search Syntax • We support only one type of search. Search criteria are provided using CQL (the Common Query Language): • Well known syntax (defined for use with SRU/SRW) • Expressive (a superset of the capabilities currently available via our meta-search technologies) • Error handling • Java Exceptions are used to signal specific types of problems: • No more results available • Meta-search session timeout • End of merged record set

7. For More Information • Out Of Band Agreements and creating a Sakaibrary consumer application (a Repository OSID Consumer): • http://issues.sakaiproject.org/confluence/x/oFY • Sakaibrary data types: • http://issues.sakaiproject.org/confluence/x/z1I