Transcript Slide 1
Rethinking the library catalogue: making search work for the library user Sally Chambers The European Library [email protected] http://twitter.com/schambers3 Challenges for library search To survive the future, a library catalogue has to offer the same user experience as a library user’s favourite search engine How can libraries harness web technologies to provide a search engine like experience for their users? I hope to outline the challenges faced by librarians to transform the traditional library catalogue into a search-engine like user experience Introducing to The European Library Unique access point for the catalogues and digital collections of the 48 National Libraries of Europe Introducing to The European Library www.theeuropeanlibrary.org Library I.R. protocols http://www.loc.gov/z3950/agency/ a client/server-based protocol for searching and retrieving information from remote databases http://www.loc.gov/standards/sru/ SRU is a standard XML-focused search protocol for Internet search queries, utilizing CQL (Contextual Query Language), a standard syntax for representing queries Library federated search The difficulties of federated search The difficulties of federated search Results list per country (1) Results list per country (2) Issues with federated search Speed of return of results not up to current user expectations Search is dependent on individual services outside the library’s control (‘not responding’) Results are returned independently and therefore difficult to integrate into a single result list Ranking of results is not core functionality of federated search protocols Towards integrated search http://www.openarchives.org/pmh/ The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) is a low-barrier mechanism for repository interoperability. Data Providers are repositories that expose structured metadata via OAI-PMH. Service Providers then make OAI-PMH service requests to harvest that metadata. OAI-PMH is a set of six verbs or services that are invoked within HTTP. Metadata harvesting protocol http://193.200.14.178:8080/repox/OAIHandler?verb =ListRecords&set=Albymika_0001&metadataPrefix =oai_dc Towards integrated search Integrated results list Integrated results list Metadata is harvested and indexed in advance – no need to rely on real time federated search Availability of search is determined by the library, without needing to rely on remote servers As the metadata is in one place it is easier to present an integrated result list Ranking search results becomes possible ... but how? Relevancy ranking in libraries? Users ‘used to good relevancy ranking’, e.g. in web search engines and can’t understand why user experience is generally inferior in libraries Ranking needed for results list which contain large amounts of data (for libraries) - estimated 180 million records in The European Library but not web-scale Dealing with a diversity of library materials In many different languages see: Lewandowski (2009) Diversity of library resources Metadata (catalogue) records (MARC format) some link to digital objects, some not Metadata records (often Dublin Core format) linking to digital objects Increasing amounts of full-text content with minimal metadata In other types of libraries, e-journals, institutional repositories etc. A mix of structured and un-structured data Typical record in MARC format www.loc.gov/marc/ Full-text search www.ifla.org/publications/functional-requirements-for-bibliographic-records Full-text search Full-text search Full-text search Full-text search Faceted search examples Faceted search examples Faceted search examples Faceted search examples Faceted search examples Faceted search examples Ability to sort the results Faceted search examples Drop down ‘pick-list’ Faceted search examples Faceted search examples Visual search Faceted search Facets and ‘dirty’ data Facets and ‘dirty’ data Facets and ‘dirty’ data Facets and ‘dirty’ data A conceptual model for the bibliographic universe Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records—or FRBR, sometimes pronounced /ˈfɜrbər/—is a conceptual entity-relationship model developed by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) that relates user tasks of retrieval and access in online library catalogues and bibliographic databases from a user’s perspective http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_Requirements_for_Bibliographic_Records www.ifla.org/publications/functional-requirements-for-bibliographic-records http://www.loc.gov/cds/downloads/FRBR.PDF FRBR essentials Refining by clustering Refining by clustering Libraries and linked data http://id.loc.gov http://viaf.org/ Mobile search …and all of this via a mobile device References Lewandowski, D (2009) Ranking library materials (Pre-print version) www.bui.haw-hamburg.de/fileadmin/user_upload/lewandowski/doc/LHT2009_preprint.pdf Karen G. Schneider (2006) How OPACS suck, ALA TechSource How OPACs Suck, Part 1: Relevance Rank (Or the Lack of It) www.alatechsource.org/blog/2006/03/how-opacs-suck-part-1-relevance-rank-or-the-lack-of-it.html How OPACs Suck, Part 2: The Checklist of Shame www.alatechsource.org/blog/2006/04/how-opacs-suck-part-2-the-checklist-of-shame.html How OPACs Suck, Part 3: The Big Picture www.alatechsource.org/blog/2006/05/how-opacs-suck-part-3-the-big-picture.html Thank you! Sally Chambers The European Library [email protected] http://twitter.com/schambers3