Rethinking the library catalogue:making search work for the library user

Sally Chambers The European Library

sally.chambers@kb.nl 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 accesspoint for thecatalogues anddigital collectionsof the 48 NationalLibraries of Europe

Introducing to The European Library

www.theeuropeanlibrary.org

Library I.R. protocols

a client/server-based protocol for searching and retrieving information from remote databases

http://www.loc.gov/z3950/agency/

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

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.

http://www.openarchives.org/pmh/

Metadata harvesting protocol

http://193.200.14.178:8080/repox/OAIHandler?verb=ListRecords&set=Albymika_0001&metadataP

refix=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 languagessee: 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

www.ifla.org/publications/functional-requirements-for-bibliographic-records

http://www.loc.gov/cds/downloads/FRBR.PDF

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

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 TechSourceHow 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 Shamewww.alatechsource.org/blog/2006/04/how-opacs-suck-part-2-the-checklist-of-shame.html

How OPACs Suck, Part 3: The Big Picturewww.alatechsource.org/blog/2006/05/how-opacs-suck-part-3-the-big-picture.html

Thank you!

Sally Chambers The European Library

sally.chambers@kb.nl http://twitter.com/schambers3