Unbundling the ILS: Deploying an e-commerce catalog search solution

1
Unbundling the ILS Deploying an e-commerce
catalog search solution

• Andrew Pace Emily Lynema
• NCSU Libraries
• April 12, 2006

2
What we will cover

• Online catalog the problem
• Brief environmental scan
• Implementation team, timeline, technology
• Demo
• Usability, statistical results, relevance study
• So what?
• Future plans

3
What ILS Catalogs Do Well(liberally stolen from
Roy Tennant)

• Inventory control What and where
• Known item searching

To enable a person to find a book of which
either is known author, title, or subject.
- Charles Cutter, Rules for Catalogs
4
What ILS Catalogs Dont do Well(liberally
stolen from Roy Tennant)

• Any search other than known item
• Known item searching
• Anything other than books and journals
• Logical groupings of results (e.g. FRBR)
• Faceted browsing
• Relevance ranking
• Sideways searching (suggestions, expansion of
  searches and search targets)

5
Endeca purchase decision

• Lots of topical searches and poor subject access
• Keyword gives too many or too few results leads
  to general distrust
• Misunderstanding of authority headings
• No relevancy ranking of results
• Needed more responsiveness (speed)

6
NextGen Library Search Tools

• The Next Generation catalog more than just a
  facelift
• RedLightGreen (RLG)
• OCLC Fictionfinder
• Vivisimo clustered search
• Aquabrowser visual context
• Endeca Guided Navigation
• Innovative Interfaces OPAC Pro
• Ex Libris Primo
• Polaris, AJAX-Enabled OPAC
• SirsiDynix Enterprise Portal System, FAST
• Talis, et al?Web Services
• OCLC Custom Worldcat
• Georgia Pines and the Library 2.0 Bandwagon

7
Implementation Team

• 7 representative team members
• Andrew Pace, Information Technology, Chair
• Cindy Levine, Research and Information Services
• Emily Lynema, Info. Tech., ex officio (tech lead)
• Erik Moore, Info. Tech., ex officio (ILS
  librarian)
• Charley Pennell, Metadata and Cataloging
• Shirley Rodgers, Information Technology
• Tito Sierra, Digital Library Initiatives
• Timeline
• License / negotiation Spring 2005
• Acquire Summer 2005
• Implementation August 2005 January 12, 2006

8
Technical Overview

• Endeca ProFind co-exists with SirsiDynix Unicorn
  ILS and Web2 online catalog.
• Endeca indexes MARC records exported from
  Unicorn.
• Index is refreshed nightly with records
  added/updated during previous day.

9
Endeca ProFind Overview
Endeca ProFind
NCSU exports and reformats
Data Foundry
Navigation Engine
Parse text files
Raw MARC data
Indices
Flat text files
HTTP
HTTP
NCSU Web Application
Client browser
10
Endeca ProFind Overview
Offline - Nightly
NCSU exports and reformats
Data Foundry
Navigation Engine
Parse text files
Raw MARC data
Indices
Flat text files
HTTP
HTTP
NCSU Web Application
Client browser
11
Endeca ProFind Overview
Always Online
NCSU exports and reformats
Data Foundry
Navigation Engine
Parse text files
Raw MARC data
Indices
Flat text files
HTTP
HTTP
NCSU Web Application
Client browser
12
Integrating Endeca

• Endeca doesnt understand MARC data / MARC-8
  character encoding translate to UTF-8 text
  files
• Each night a script updates the data indexed by
  Endeca
• Exports updated or new MARC records from Unicorn.
• Reformats and merges these records with those
  already indexed.
• Starts Endeca re-index completely rebuilding
  index for the catalog.
• Process requires about 7 hours.
• Retain Web2 OPAC for some functionality
• Authority searching - known items and
  cross-references
• Detailed record pages how to make Endeca -gt
  Web2 link?

13
Quick Demo

• http//catalog.lib.ncsu.edu

14
Some User Reaction

• This is absolutely the coolest thing I've seen
  all century.
• Will Owen, Head of Systems (UNC Libraries)
• Also, I'm really digging the new NCSU library
  catalog. Very nice."
• - Educause staff (non-librarian)
• The new Endeca system is incredible. It would be
  difficult to exaggerate how much better it is
  than our old online card catalog (and therefore
  that of most other universities). I've found
  myself searching the catalog just for fun,
  whereas before it was a chore to find what I
  needed.
• - NCSU Undergrad, Statistics

15
Some Search Statistics (March 2006)
16
(No Transcript)
17
Some Navigation Statistics (March 2006)
18
Other interesting tidbits (March 2006)

• 3.6 of all searches had spelling corrected
  automatically
• 2.6 of all searches had alternate spelling
  suggestions

19
Usability Testing Trends I

• 10 undergraduate students
• 5 with Endeca catalog
• 5 with old Web2 OPAC
• Endeca performed as well as OPAC for known-item
  searching
• 89 Endeca tasks completed easily (8/9)
• 71 OPAC tasks completed easily (15/21)
• Endeca performs better than OPAC for topical
  searching
• 61 Endeca tasks completed easily (19/31)
• 3 Endeca tasks completed as hard (1/31)
• 33 OPAC tasks completed easily (13/39)
• 26 OPAC tasks completed as hard (10/39)

20
Usability Testing Trends II

• Relevance most important
• Once I scroll through a page, I get pretty
  discouraged about the results...
• Web2 OPAC participant looking for resources on
  cat health
• Keyword term less intuitive / trusted than
  Subject and Title
• I used Keyword in Title because thats what I
  want the book to be mainly referring to. But I
  also couldve went Keyword in Subject. But if Id
  have went Keyword Anywhere it would have had too
  big of a field to look through.
• Web2 OPAC participant looking for resources on
  gene therapy
• When found, dimensions seem intuitive and useful
• Did you mean seems intuitive
• Students dont necessarily treat the catalog like
  Google!

21
A study in relevance

• Are search results in Endeca more likely to be
  relevant to a users query than search results in
  Web2 OPAC?
• 100 topical user searches from 1 month in fall
  2005
• How many of top 5 results relevant?
• 51 relevant in Web2 OPAC 31 no hits
• 69 relevant in Endeca catalog 12 no hits

22
Relevance defined

• Relevance ranking in Endeca select from a
  variety of modules and order them based on
  importance.
• Relevance most important in Keyword Anywhere -
  searches all fields.
• At NCSU
• Original query term(s) (no thesaurus, stemming,
  spell correction)
• Exact phrase match
• Field ranking (Title higher than Author higher
  than Table of Contents)
• Number of fields that contain term(s)

23
So what? Its still just a catalog

• The library systems puzzle
• Reversal of fortune

24
The library system puzzle
Serials
AI / FT DBs
Catalog
Web
25
The library system puzzle
Serials
AI / FT DBs
Metasearch
ERM Systems
GS
Digital Repositories
Guided Navigation
Catalog
Web
IR
Legacy ILS
26
Reversal of fortune
OLD SEARCH MODEL
NEW SEARCH MODEL
27
Future Plans

• Ongoing tweaks
• Continued usability testing
• Relevance ranking algorithms spell correction
  thresholds
• Additional browsing options
• Endeca 2.0 ideas
• FRBR-ized display
• Discussions with OCLC regarding FAST (Faceted
  Access to Subject Terms) and FRBR
• Patron-generated refinements (folksonomies?)
• Enrich records with supplemental Web Services
  content more usable TOCs, book reviews, etc.
• The death of authority searching (?)
• More integration with QuickSearch, other data
  repositories, and third-party discovery tools

28
Thanks

• http//www.lib.ncsu.edu/endeca
• Andrew Pace, Head, IT
• andrew_pace_at_ncsu.edu
• Emily Lynema, Systems Librarian for Digital
  Projects
• emily_lynema_at_ncsu.edu