A Faceted Interface to the Library Catalog

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A Faceted Interface to the Library Catalog
Tito SierraNCSU LibrariesALA Midwinter
MeetingJanuary 20, 2007
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Outline

• Motivation
• Demo
• Key Features
• Faceted Navigation
• Facet Usage Statistics
• Implementation Challenges
• Reflections

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Motivation

• Improve the library catalog user experience
• Exploit existing authority infrastructure (make
  MARC data work harder!)

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Endeca at NCSU

• Endeca used to improve the discovery portion of
  the library catalog
• Endeca software indexes 1.6 million MARC records
  exported nightly from Sirsi Unicorn ILS
• Backend functions of ILS remain intact

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What is Endeca?

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

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Why Endeca?

• Configurable relevance ranking
• Improved response time
• Better search features
• Better subject access by turning metadata into
  facets

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Demo
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Key Features

• Relevance ranking
• Search comforts
• True browse
• Faceted navigation

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Relevance Ranking

• Based on a locally managed and customizable
  algorithm
• Factors
• Query as entered most relevant
• Field match weighting (title gt notes field)
• Number of fields matched
• Lots of other levers and dials to tweak

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Search Comforts

• Did you mean suggestions
• Automatic spell correction
• Stemming
• Sort options

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True Browse

• Browse by Library of Congress Classification
  without entering search terms

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Faceted Navigation

• What is it?
• Why do it?

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What is Faceted Navigation?
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What is Faceted Navigation?

• Search and browse in a single interface
• Facets can vary in scope
• What is the item about?
• What kind of item is it?
• Where is it?
• Enables users to narrow results

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Why Faceted Navigation?

• Information Foraging (Pirolli and Card)
• People seek maximum benefit for minimal effort
  when searching for information
• People look for clues to determine if they are on
  the right path
• Faceted results provide clues
• Help users help themselves

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Faceted Navigation on the Web
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Faceted Navigation on the Web
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Faceted Navigation on the Web
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Faceted Navigation in Libraries
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Faceted Navigation in Libraries
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Faceted Navigation in Libraries
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Faceted Navigation in Libraries
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Facets Implemented at NCSU

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

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

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Facet Usage Statistics
July - November 2006
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Facet Usage Statistics
July - November 2006
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Facet Usage Statistics
July - November 2006
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Implementation Challenges

• Facet selection
• Interface design
• Data issues

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Facet Selection
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Interface Design

• Iterative approach using wireframes
• Eight major revisions in a four month period
• Still lots of room for improvement

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Interface Design

• Iterative approach using wireframes
• Eight major revisions in a four month period
• Still lots of room for improvement

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Interface Design

• Iterative approach using wireframes
• Eight major revisions in a four month period
• Still lots of room for improvement

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Data Issues

• ILS data with MARC-8 encoding gt Text data with
  UTF-8 encoding
• Data consistency between ILS and Endeca catalog
  indexes (updates!)
• Data issues revealed by exposing metadata (ex
  subject headings) in facets

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Reflections

• Faceted navigation enables new ways to discovery
  resources
• Library collections often contain rich
  descriptive metadata exploit this!
• We have much to learn about how to optimize these
  interfaces for the user

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More Information

• NCSU Endeca Project Site
• http//www.lib.ncsu.edu/endeca
• ITAL Article
• Antelman, K., Lynema, E., Pace, A. (2006).
  "Toward a 21st Century Library Catalog,"
  Information Technology and Libraries, 25(3).

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Thanks!

• Tito Sierra
• Asst. Head of Digital Library Development
• NCSU Libraries
• tito_sierra_at_ncsu.edu