Improving the Catalogue Interface using Endeca

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Improving the Catalogue Interface using Endeca
Tito SierraNCSU Libraries
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Outline

• Motivation
• Demo
• Technical Overview
• Implementation
• Stats and Usability
• Future Plans

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Motivation

• Improve the quality of the library catalogue user
  experience
• Exploit our existing authority infrastructure
  (aka make MARC data work harder)

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What is Endeca?

• Software company based in Cambridge, MA
• Search and information access technology provider
  for several major commercial websites
• Developers of the Endeca Information Access
  Platform

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Why Endeca?

• Relevance ranking of results
• Browse
• Improved subject access
• Performance / speed

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Demo
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Key Features

• Relevance ranking
• Faceted browse
• True browse
• Search comforts
• Spell correction
• Did you mean
• Stemming
• Sort options

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Relevance Ranking

• Based on an ordering of modules
• Original query match
• Phrase match
• Field match (tiered)
• Number of fields matched
• Weighted frequency (TF/IDF)
• Publication date descending
• Circulation stats descending

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Faceted Browse

• Search and browse in single interface
• Layered facet refinement
• Filter results across multiple dimensions
• Facet deselection

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Facet Refinements

• Availability
• Author
• Library
• Format
• Language
• New

• LC Classification
• Subject Topic
• Subject Genre
• Subject Region
• Subject Era

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True Browse

• Entrypoint into the catalog based on Library of
  Congress Classification

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Search Comforts

• Spell correction
• Did you mean
• Stemming
• Sort options (e.g. publication date, most
  popular, call number)

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Big Wins

• Relevance ranking
• Speed / performance
• Locally managed presentation interface
• Persistent parameter based entrypoints

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Features Not Supported

• Work level aggregations / roll-up
• Customization / personalization
• Folksonomies / user contributed content
• Recommender functionality
• Shopping cart functionality

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Technical Overview

• Endeca co-exists with SirsiDynix Unicorn ILS and
  Web2 online catalog
• Endeca handles keyword search
• Web2 handles authority search and detail page
  display
• Endeca indexes MARC records exported nightly from
  Unicorn
• Endeca discovery portion of the ILS

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Technical Overview
Information Access Platform
NCSU exports and reformats
Data Foundry
MDEX Engine
Parse text files
Raw MARC data
Indices
Flat text files
HTTP
HTTP
NCSU Web Application
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Technical Overview
Offline - Nightly
NCSU exports and reformats
Data Foundry
MDEX Engine
Parse text files
Raw MARC data
Indices
Flat text files
HTTP
HTTP
NCSU Web Application
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Technical Overview
Always Online
NCSU exports and reformats
Data Foundry
MDEX Engine
Parse text files
Raw MARC data
Indices
Flat text files
HTTP
HTTP
NCSU Web Application
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Implementation Team

• Seven member team
• 5 IT staff, 1 cataloging librarian, 1 reference
  librarian
• Timeline
• License / negotiation Spring 2005
• Software acquisition Summer 2005
• Implementation Aug 2005 to Jan 2006

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Implementation Challenges

• Deciding which facets to surface as navigation
  refinements
• Designing the user interface
• Optimizing the relevance ranking algorithm
• Optimizing the faceted navigation display

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Usage Statistics
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Usage Statistics
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Usage Statistics
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Usability Testing

• 10 undergraduate students
• 5 with new Endeca-based interface
• 5 with old catalog interface
• Data collected
• Task difficulty/failure
• Task duration

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Usability Testing
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Usability Testing
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Usability Testing
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Post Launch Enhancements

• Relevance ranking tweaks
• Facet organization and labeling improvements
• Backend data cleanup (e.g. global subfield
  assignment changes)

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Future Plans

• Aggregated work display (roll-up)
• More browsing options
• Interface improvements and continued usability
  testing
• Web Services interfaces
• Search results in RSS/OpenSearch format
• Catalog Availability Web Service

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Reflections

• Right tool for right job
• Benefit of small teams
• Local iterative development
• Catalog interface only part of the puzzle

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More Information

• Magnifying the ILS with Endeca, The Serials
  Librarian, 51(3/4), 2006.
• Toward a 21st Century Library Catalog,
  Information Technologies and Libraries, 23(3),
  2006.

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Thanks

• http//www.lib.ncsu.edu/endeca
• Tito Sierra
• Digital Technologies Development Librarian
• tito_sierra_at_ncsu.edu