RANTLHA L.B. (MANTE)

MILLENNIUM FEDERATED SEARCH PLATFORM :

RESEARCH PRO AS A LEARNER & RESEARCH SUPPORT INITIATIVE AT UNISA

Innovative Millennium.lnk

ABSTRACT

• The developing technologies have brought about a tremendous change in the Library and Information world.

• Libraries are now opting to go “e” in resources. The more e-resources - the more challenges they bring in the information retrieval process.

• The process of information retrieval becomes tedious and sometimes confusing for our clientele who end up searching from only few familiar resources or search engines, leaving most of the resources unused.

1. Introduction

• Libraries catalogued resources are increased in millions• The number of electronic databases resources also are

increasing in volumes• The search engines such as Google, Yahoo etc are also

increasing their contents in billions

1.1 Intro continues

• On the other hand our users (both students and Academics) prefer to search from one platform – unlike learning to search from various multiple search platforms

hence• Users prefer to google their searches because Google

gives them one search platform and results with a click of the mouse

Research

• Byrne & McGillis (2008) conducted research and reported that library clients require an average of five (5) minutes to find an article and four (4) minutes for a book

Research, continues

• Therefore, current technology in academic libraries is focusing on making this search process easier to handle by introducing federated search systems

Federated searching

This federated search system technology allows users of the libraries to search from different databases simultaneously and get relevant results at once

Federated Search Diagram

By William H. MischoUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-

Champaign

MILLENNIUM FEDERATED SEARCH PLATFORM AT UNISA

• It is called Research Pro• Research Pro allows clients to search across:• the OASIS Library Catalogue • Multiple licensed Databases• Selected search engines ( by iii)

simultaneously through a single interface.

One click “Put it all together” provides results from all selected resources at once.

Innovative Millennium.lnk

Converting from the Metafind to Research Pro

• Hosting : Research pro is hosted by iii- on a server located at their Headquarters

• Access is controlled via WAM – prompts for validation via My Oasis• NB. It does not require separate proxy server. It just needs a unique

IP address for all the databases• IP address should be supplied by iii as part of the setup• Database Vendors : were contacted – to open access for the

research pro IP address• Changes: III takes the responsibility of implementing whatever

changes we want to make

Methodology

Responsible Workgroup

Research Pro Team

Selection process of databases

Databases Categories

Project Implementation

OASIS Workgroup

13 members selected from the Oasis workgroup

Personal librarians & Search Librarians

•Business & Management•Humanities & Social Sciences•Sciences•multidisciplinary

Installed August 2009 and it will be launched after the upgrade to Research Pro 2.0

LIST OF PLATFORMS ADDED BY III INNOVATIVE

Best bets Library Catalogue

Indexes and abstracts

Image databases

Search engines

• Emerald•Eric•ABIInfo Global•Pubmed

Unisa Oasis Catalogue

Pubmed •AltaVista images• Artcyclopedia• Google images

• Google•Bong•Open Directory•Yahoo

STEP1

To access the research pro one needs to be authenticated by the

system

Please identify yourself

Authorization gives access to the Research Pro Page

Select a group of databases to search from (NB) relevant to

the subject field. Do not exceed 14 databases

Deductable taxes

It indicates the number of articles retrieved from each database

THANKS TO III INNOVATIVE MILLENNIUM

• Their products are trust – worthy in the Library Technology marketplace because they meet the clients needs and improve our services.

ANY ?????

Thanks