Searching: the Good, the Bad,

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Searching the Good, the Bad, the Ugly

• Roy Tennant
• California Digital Library

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Outline

• Where I Want to Be, Part I
• Principles
• Where We Are, Part I
• Where We Are, Part II
• Where I Want to Be, Part II
• Parting Words

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Where I Want to Be, Part I
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Content Discovery Principles

• Only librarians like to search, everyone else
  prefers to find
• One place to search is better than two or more
• Good enough is just that
• What is not searched is as important as what is

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Integration Principles

• Integrate metadata whenever possible
• Honor metadata differences
• Exploit metadata similarities
• Offer appropriate methods to narrow the scope
• If you cant centralize metadata, centralize
  searching

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Where We Are, Part I Overview

• Many database vendors still do not support a
  search protocol
• NISO MXG out, but not yet widely implemented
• Software still in early stages
• Market still in upheaval
• Most libraries still learning from early
  implementations

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Where We Are, Part I The Landscape
Elsevier
Google
Publishers
California DigitalLibrary
Indexers/Aggregators
Portal Providers
Libraries
Software Vendors
Users
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Where We Are, Part IThe Tyranny of Numbers

• Number of resources being searched
• Number of results being returned by each resource
• Number of simultaneous users

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Where We Are, Part I Implementations

• First Generation
• Out-of-the-box interface w/minimal customization
• One-stop-shopping model
• Second Generation
• More customized, may even use the API instead
• More about tailoring portals for specific
  audiences and/or purposes
• Third Generation
• Not there yet
• Dynamic tailored portals

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Where We Are, Part II

• Some institutions are
• Using the metasearch application as a service,
  not a destination
• Creating search tools tailored to specific
  audiences and/or purposes
• Requires building your own interface layer
• Enables better integration with other systems
  and services

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Metalib
Databases
http
Your Application
Slide courtesy of David Walker, CSU San Marcos
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Where I Want to Be, Part II

• One-stop shopping
• As many resources locally integrated as possible
• Based on what we know about the user (cookie
  information, library card ID, etc.), we
• Dynamically select appropriate sources to search
• Receive ranked results from sources
• Cluster search results

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Questions to Ask Software Vendors

• Exactly how difficult is it to customize your
  interface? (show me)
• Will we need to redo our customizations with
  system upgrades?
• Do you have an API? If so, please show me the
  documentation
• Which resources are available for metasearching?
• And through what types of connections? For each,
  do you bring back records or only a hit count?

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Questions to Ask Yourselves

• Can we afford to wait?
• What is our goal for metasearching?
• How much work are we prepared to do to customize
  the interface?
• Do we want to access the product via the API?
• Do we have institutional buy-in?

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Final Advice

• Review your user needs
• Determine your goals
• Survey your options and decide which pain(s) you
  wish to endure
• Be prepared to spend more money and time than you
  plan, for less result than you hope for
• Its hard, but it can be worth it!