Next Generation Discovery

1
Next Generation Discovery

• An Alternative to Traditional Federated Searching

2

• Tracy L. Thompson
• Executive Director
• NELLCO
• tracy.thompson_at_yale.edu
• 603-357-3385

3
Obligatory Disclaimer

• The presentation you are about to witness is
  offered by an administrator, not a technology
  guru. If you have questions of a highly technical
  nature please contact Sebastian Hammer of
  IndexData
• quinn_at_indexdata.com
• I will attempt to answer questions of a lowly
  technical nature. . .

4
Agenda
1. NELLCO
2. Federated search limitations
3. An enterprising approach
4. NELLCOs Universal Search Solution
5. Questions?
5
NELLCO

• New England Law Library Consortium
• Incorporated in MA - 501(c)(3) status
• Established 1983 15 members
• Today - 102 members, 33 states, 3 countries, 3
  membership categories
• Members academic state, court and county
  membership

6
VISION

• To be the leader of resource sharing and
  networking in the legal community through
  cutting-edge research and technology.

7
MISSION

• To provide efficient and effective access to
  legal resources by cooperating in a full range of
  resource sharing services that support the
  objectives of the individual law libraries of the
  member institutions and the group as a whole.

8
Projects and Initiatives

• Reciprocal ILL
• Fax machines
• Professional Education opportunities
• Virtual Union Catalog
• Collaborative Virtual Reference Service
• Legal Scholarship Repository
• Consortial pricing/licensing
• Area of Expertise Interest Groups ILL, Acq/CD,
  Ref

9
Federated Search and NELLCO

• 2004 Reference Interest Group BU
• Why do our users need federated search?
• Our users go to Westlaw, Lexis and Google (the
  anchors)

10
The Information Mall
11
Federated Search and NELLCO

• 2004 Reference Interest Group BU
• Why do our users need federated search?
• Our users go to Westlaw, Lexis and Google (the
  anchors)
• Miss out on boutique resources
• Current discovery (out)mode is through OPACs and
  A-Z lists
• We need to steer researchers to relevant
  resources
• Enhance scholarship
• Justify budgets

12
Meeting Outcome

• Franklin Pierce Law Center (FPLC) Director Judy
  Gire commissioned working group Roberta Woods
  (Chair)
• Charge? - find the best fed search tool for FPLC
• Result of year-long study? the fed search
  paradigm isnt sustainable

13
Fed Search Paradigm

• Real-time search across multiple databases
• User enters search string
• Search is broadcast to ALL associated databases,
  regardless of content
• Search string is translated into native search
  language
• Search results are delivered as they are
  retrieved

14
Federated Search
15
Problems with the Paradigm

• Excessive/unnecessary vendor server traffic
  scattershot approach
• Search may not translate as expected
• Difficulty ranking first-in-time delivery
• Difficulty de-duping
• Skewed usage statistics

16
An Alternative Approach

• FPLC committee began exploring enterprise search
  technology
• Developed for fortune 500 companies
• Intended for searching proprietary content
• Examples
• Googles GSA
• Thunderstones Enterprise Search Appliance
• Vivisimo
• Endeca

17
Enterprise Search Paradigm

• Host creates local index of content
• Searcher enters search string
• Search is run against the index
• Search results are displayed
• Results link to content, not index

18
Enterprise Search
19
FPLCs Vision

• Enterprise search applied across ALL electronic
  content sources
• OPAC
• Third-party (paid) resources
• Free web
• Internal datasets
• Keep the librarian involved in collection
  development/selection
• Harness NELLCOs leverage/vendor relationships?

20
NELLCO Response?

• The Universal Search Solution Project

21
Our Goal

• Build, in a collaborative environment, a one-box
  search application that will allow legal
  researchers to find relevant content (as defined
  by collection development standards), both print
  and electronic, with a single search query and
  without reference to the OPAC or A-Z list as
  starting points.

22
Publisher Benefits?

• More relevant exposure for their content
• Reduced server traffic
• Representative usage stats

23
NELLCO Response?

• First attempts included off the shelf solutions
  (GSA and Thunderstone)
• Obstacles
• business models
• relationships with content providers
• Could we build our own?
• Money
• Technical expertise
• Human resources

24
Money

• 2007 Institute of Museum and Library Services
  (IMLS) National Leadership Grant - 374k
• 1 to 1 matching required
• 2 year grant period - 12/07-11/09
• Project total _at_850k

25
Technical Expertise

• Open source solution
• Development Partner Sebastian Hammer
• IndexData Danish based library solution
  developer

26
Human Resources

• Project Coordinator Carl Grant
• NELLCO ED and Admin. Assist.
• Project Committee
• Chaired by Roberta Woods (FPLC)
• Members appointed by Directors
• 10 time commitment over two years
• 5 members represent library types
• Grad. intern from Syracuse
• Participating member libraries
• Participating vendor/publishers

27
The Project

• Secure vendor and member commitments
• Develop best practices cookbooks
• Develop interfaces
• one box GUI (but advanced search will be
  supported)
• Admin. interfaces
• Design by committee

28
The Project

• Develop authentication scheme
• Two layers
• Authenticate the user to the index (NELLCO)
• Identifies user for correct resource menu
• Authenticate the user to the resource (Vendor or
  library)
• Identifies user as authorized user of content

29
The Project

• Build the index OAI-PMH protocol
• OPACs
• Local content
• Free web resources vetted by members
• Subscription/fee-based resources
• 20 vendors during proof of concept phase
• 5 currently committed
• Commitments required by 4/1/08

30
The Project

• Launch beta by end of 08
• Evaluate
• Troubleshoot and modify
• Evaluate
• Grant period ends 11/09
• Proof of concept sustainability?

31
Thank you!

• Questions?
• tracy.thompson_at_yale.edu
• 603-357-3385