CDL’s Metasearch Infrastructure

ICOLC, Boston

April 13, 2005Laine Farley, Director

Digital Library Services

The “Holy Grail”of Resource Discovery

• One-stop shopping

• Simplify a complex task

• User focuses on results, not on where to search

Metasearching at CDL: A Brief History

• 1997: UC San Diego creates Database Advisor

• 1999: CDL creates metasearch tool based on DBA

• 2000: SearchLight launched• 2002-3: CDL looks beyond SL • 2002-3: Commercial products arrive• 2003: CDL Metasearch Infrastructure project

Metasearching at CDL: A Brief History

• 2004: RFP “bakeoff” – consortial model

• 2004: Metalib installed, v. 3

• 2005: Reality sets in…

Lessons Learned from SearchLight

• Metasearching is worth doing (many users want it)

• For a large research library, focus on specific audience, subject, task, format

• Service should be placed as close to the user as possible

Lessons Learned from SearchLight

• Size of result set isn’t as important as how the results are displayed (e.g., relevance)

• All things being equal, one place to search is better than two or more

• “Good enough” is often just that• Only librarians like to search, everyone

else wants to find

Prototypes

• Two campus partners– “Smart Start” – undergrads (UCSC, UCLA)– “European Studies” – faculty (UCLA)

• Two grant projects– National Science Digital Library –

Geology?– Hewlett Foundation - American West

“Vanilla” Interface

Usability testing / Focus Groups

• Upper division undergrads – UCB– Google: use to get started but not for “real”– Already know “their” database(s) –more

options for limiting– Some still wanted metasearch -

multidisciplinary

Lower division undergrads – UC Santa Cruz

• “A Google search will probably give me celebrity gossip” but…useful for terms, narrowing topic

• “If you can’t trust the library to give you good information, who can you trust? “

• “I don’t know what all these databases are”

• Various usability problems

Custom Interface

• UCLA – European Studies – Help develop processes, workflow

– Develop templates for other campuses

– Research oriented

– Not all resources can be searched

Custom Interface - 2

• National Science Digital Library

– Test integration of NSDL content with academic library resources

– Proof of concept – may not become production service

Custom Interface – 3

• American West

– OAI harvested metadata - primary

– Licensed databases for UC users - secondary

Developments to Date

• Ex Libris– X-server enhancements

• NISO Metasearch– SRU/SRW “light”

Development

• CDL: – Harvesting tools– ATE: Analyze, Transform, Enrich– UI and Common Framework

• UCLA: – Analyzing targets– Testing groupings

Timeline

• Fall 2005?– NSDL– UCLA European Integration– Smart Start

• Spring 2005– American West

Future Possibilities

• Medical texts (e.g., MDConsult equivalent)

• Images

• East Asian

What keeps me awake at night

• Walmart (Target?) vs boutique– Just in case vs just in time– Commodity vs crafted

• Search vs services– Users want to find, but also use

What keeps me awake at night

• If you can’t trust the library…– What is the value of selection, curation,

expertise

Stay tuned….

Questions?

Project Manager

Roy.Tennant@ucop.edu