Federated Search Implementation Challenges

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Federated SearchImplementation Challenges

• Judi Briden
• Digital Librarian for Public Services
• River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester

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University of Rochester

• Private institution in upstate New York
• Doctoral/Research University Extensive
• River Campus, School of Medicine, Eastman School
  of Music
• Almost 8,000 FTE

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Recent Library Projects

• Web site with consistent look feel across tasks
• Customized library page for each course
• Institutional repository for the University
• Work practice studies with an anthropologist
• Rare Books, Special Collections Preservation
  web site

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Context for Digital Projects

• User-centered design process
• Collaboration among content experts, design group
  usability team
• Multiple iterations before release

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Federated Search at U Rochester

• Articles More 2002
• Custom interface
• Find Articles 2003
• External subject associations
• Find Articles 2, Fall 2005
• Selection options more databases
• Enhanced target delivery (GUF)

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Sample Find Articles Searches

• horowitz
• funding public education lottery
• gays and films
• Robin Hood
• Robin Hood negative

atla "TOLKIEN Lot exegesis psychology 101 an
innovative therapy Social Ethics Morality and
Social Policy "I wish i could shimmy like my
sister kate"
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What Our Users Are Teaching Us About Searching

• Dont make them choose before searching
• Dont make them read before searching
• Dont expect consistent search structures
• Accept gracefully whatever they type in
• Keyword strings, Boolean, quoted phrases,
• Even if it has no affect on the search

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What Our Users Are Teaching Us AboutSearch
Results

• Undergraduates assume relevance sort
• Initial results should show
• Search terms, highlighted
• Brief summaries, to aid selection
• What an item is - article, book, something else?
• Users expect one click to full text
• (or minimum needed to get it)

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To Improve Federated Search

• Support for Standards
• APIs to functionality
• Consistent metadata
• FRBR
• Refine Search More Like This

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To Improve Federated Search 2

• End to screen scraping
• Ability to ignore initial articles
• Print/Email/Save
• Products that do much of this work for us!

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For More Information About

• Work Practice Study - Nancy Foster
• nfoster_at_library.rochester.edu
• User-Centered Design - David Lindahl
• dlindahl_at_library.rochester.edu
• Usability - Brenda Reeb
• breeb_at_library.rochester.edu
• GUF - Jeff Suszczynski
• jsuszczynski_at_library.rochester.edu

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Judi Briden

• Digital Librarian for Public Services
• River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester
• jbriden_at_library.rochester.edu