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Searching the OPAC: The State of Play

Peter Binkley peter.binkley@ualberta.ca Access 2007. Searching the OPAC: The State of Play. Areas of Functionality. Clumping Ordering Exploiting Contributing Deploying. Prehistory. antarcti.ca (1999) screenshot: Peter Morville. History 1.

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Searching the OPAC: The State of Play

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  1. Peter Binkley peter.binkley@ualberta.ca Access 2007 Searching the OPAC: The State of Play

  2. Areas of Functionality • Clumping • Ordering • Exploiting • Contributing • Deploying

  3. Prehistory • antarcti.ca (1999) screenshot: Peter Morville

  4. History 1 • Andrew Pace: “Making minor changes t library catalog systems is like putting lipstick on a pig.” (LITA forum, Sept. 2005)‏ • NCSU's Endeca OPAC (Jan. 2006)‏ • WPOPAC (now called Scriblio; Casey Bisson, Feb. 2006)‏ • Karen Schneider, “How OPACs Suck, parts 1-3) (Mar.-May 2006)‏ • LibraryThing; XC (May 2006)‏

  5. History 2 • ILS vendors follow suit, led by Ex Libris with Primo (May 2006); Encore (III); EPS/Rooms (Sirsi/Dynix)‏ • NGC4LIB listserv (June 2006)‏ • Evergreen (Georgia PINES; Sept. 2006)‏

  6. History 3 • Open source alternatives, notably Solr-based • Casey Durfee, "Open Source Endeca in 250 Lines or Less" (Code4Lib, Mar. 2007)‏ • Erik Hatcher / Bess Sadler, BlackLight (UVA, Apr. 2007)‏ • Andrew Nagy, VUFind (July. 2007)‏

  7. Clumping 1 • Bringing like together with like, for navigation, comparison and selection • Notably by faceting on metadata fields • But also by means of tags and other extra-metadata • Examples: • NCSU (Endeca)‏ • BlackLight • Summa

  8. Clumping 2 • Beyond faceting: automated FRBRizing • On the fly, based on online services • xISBN (OCLC) (example)‏ • thingISBN (LibraryThing)‏ • Or systematically, based on algorithms applied to metadata • OCLC Office of Research

  9. Visualization • Lists of facets can be processed into visual presentations as well as textual • Literal: geographical subject headings • Example: Peel Project • Figurative: abstract visualizations of various types, e.g. Aquabrowser

  10. Ordering 1 • Traditional OPACs default to last-in first-out • NextGen OPACs provide relevance ranked results • But... does TF/IDF work for bib records? • Examples • U of Alberta • Vanderbilt (Primo test)‏

  11. Ordering 2 • Problem of relevance ranking: Libraries Australia solution (Dellitt and Boston 2007)‏ 1. Matches in the title, author and subject fields, and those fields which describe the format, nature or form of the item, are more important than general matches within the record. 2. Matches in multiples of the above fields are more important than matches in just one of those fields. 3. Where there is one or more query terms, an exact match of the term (where what was typed in to the query box is exactly the same as what is in a field in the record) is much more important than a phrase match (where what was typed in to the query box matches exactly a part of what is in a field in the record), which is more important than a word match (where all the terms in a query box appear in the field, but not necessarily next to each other). ... • Example: Libraries Australia

  12. Exploiting • Web 1.0 was the human-readable web; Web 2.0 is the machine-readable web • Make bibliographic metadata actionable • Examples • Export citations to e.g. RefWorks • unAPI: embedded link to raw metadata • COinS: embedded “headless” OpenURL • Tools: e.g. Firefox extensions • LibX: toolbar provides customized links • Zotero: citation manager

  13. Contributing • “User-generated content” • Especially tags • Example: Tamworth, NH (Scriblio)‏ • LibraryThing for Libraries: import tags and recommendations • Example: Danbury, CT • LibraryBiblioCommons approach (webcast): • the fully social OPAC • aggregated as broadly as possible

  14. Identity • An added dimension to tagging: personal metadata is a potential source of facets, relevance • Networks of trust • OPAC is already an authenticated environment, but must interlock with other identity systems, e.g. courseware • Shibboleth? OpenID?

  15. Deploying • New watchword: “Place our resources where our users live.” • I.E. courseware, Facebook, browser plugins (e.g. LibX), etc., VRE • Interfaces: SRU, OpenSearch allow mashups – even OAI-PMH? • Shall we pursue them as far as Second Life?

  16. Issues and Obstacles • Planning, determining specifications • Metadata cleanup • Back end processes

  17. Planning and Specifying • NCSU example: eight months • With one technical librarian, supported by a team and by the vendor (Anstelman, Lynema, Pace, 2007)‏ • Issues of scope: what goes in? Is this “only” a catalogue, or something else? • Example: • WorldCat Local

  18. Metadata Cleanup • Faceting exposes (bad) metadata • Example: BlackLight • Do you know how clean your data is?

  19. Back End Processes • Extracting bibliographic and holdings records • Enhancing them with external metadata • Processing and Indexing • Maintaining synchronization in real time (NCSU: 1.7 million records, updated nightly; BlackLight: 3.8 million, similar)‏ • Circulation status... (NCSU: nightly)‏

  20. Services on the Grid • Alternative approach: scoped view of union catalogue • e.g. WorldCat Local, or Talis Library Platform • Or Google? • Advantage: broader aggregation of content • Disadvantage: complexity of including local holdings-level metadata, integration with local systems

  21. Special Collections • Benefits of providing access to collections with special needs • e.g. Umlaut: special handling of technical reports • e.g. Blacklight: faceting of musical instruments • Escape from one-size-fits-all approach of OPAC

  22. Imperative • Users do not like our interfaces • They do not use our advanced search features • They do not get the full benefit from our collections • We will only be left further and further behind

  23. But... • What if we solve the discovery problem for OPAC-contents, but it doesn't work for the rest of our users' citation-space? • Integration with metasearch? OpenURL resolvers? (Umlaut)‏

  24. Continuity • The technological opportunities change • The service imperatives do not • Traditional core values and methods of librarianship will see us through

  25. Peter Binkley peter.binkley@ualberta.ca Access 2007 Searching the OPAC: The State of Play

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