A Single Search Box Interface to the NCSU Libraries

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A Single Search Box Interface to the NCSU
Libraries
Tito SierraNCSU LibrariesLAUNC-CH Annual 2007
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Outline

• Motivation
• The State of Library Search
• Quick Search at NCSU
• Design Principles
• Six Modules
• Technology
• Usage Statistics

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Motivation

• Libraries provide online access to a variety of
  information resources
• Print resources (library catalog)
• Electronic journals and serials
• Article databases
• Subject guides and reference tools
• Library services and information
• Many of these resources are keyword searchable,
  but via separate interfaces

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Motivation

• User desire for a single search box that searches
  everything the library has to offer
• Evidence of library website search being used
  exactly in this way

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Motivation

• Search Logs
• acm digital, ILL, policies, standard,
  international economic development, fines,
  dissertation abstracts, music therapy, ACM,
  wolfcopy, Oxford English Dictionary, audio,
  illegal immigration, schedule, interlibrary,
  datamonitor, chemistry, JAMA, stephen king, CRC,
  photography, vision, wiley, citation builder,
  job, andrew pace, academic search elite, ria,
  film studies, career development, sanborn maps,
  citation index, iee, history, industry analysis,
  scholarly journals, sitation builder, hamlet,
  ethics, spss, petition, animal behavior, psych
  info, repository, ENR, diabetes, data, lrl,
  cancer, textbooks, wharton, Christian Science
  Monitor, ITTC, blah, PubMed, time magazine,
  nutrition, book return, DVD, questia, conductive
  heat transfer, sage, newspaper, mp3 player,
  enzyme lactase, digital media lab, american
  journal of psychology

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Motivation

• Search Logs
• acm digital, ILL, policies, standard,
  international economic development, fines,
  dissertation abstracts, music therapy, ACM,
  wolfcopy, Oxford English Dictionary, audio,
  illegal immigration, schedule, interlibrary,
  datamonitor, chemistry, JAMA, stephen king, CRC,
  photography, vision, wiley, citation builder,
  job, andrew pace, academic search elite, ria,
  film studies, career development, sanborn maps,
  citation index, iee, history, industry analysis,
  scholarly journals, sitation builder, hamlet,
  ethics, spss, petition, animal behavior, psych
  info, repository, ENR, diabetes, data, lrl,
  cancer, textbooks, wharton, Christian Science
  Monitor, ITTC, blah, PubMed, time magazine,
  nutrition, book return, DVD, questia, conductive
  heat transfer, sage, newspaper, mp3 player,
  enzyme lactase, digital media lab, american
  journal of psychology

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Motivation

• Search Logs
• acm digital, ILL, policies, standard,
  international economic development, fines,
  dissertation abstracts, music therapy, ACM,
  wolfcopy, Oxford English Dictionary, audio,
  illegal immigration, schedule, interlibrary,
  datamonitor, chemistry, JAMA, stephen king, CRC,
  photography, vision, wiley, citation builder,
  job, andrew pace, academic search elite, ria,
  film studies, career development, sanborn maps,
  citation index, iee, history, industry analysis,
  scholarly journals, sitation builder, hamlet,
  ethics, spss, petition, animal behavior, psych
  info, repository, ENR, diabetes, data, lrl,
  cancer, textbooks, wharton, Christian Science
  Monitor, ITTC, blah, PubMed, time magazine,
  nutrition, book return, DVD, questia, conductive
  heat transfer, sage, newspaper, mp3 player,
  enzyme lactase, digital media lab, american
  journal of psychology

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Motivation

• Search Logs
• acm digital, ILL, policies, standard,
  international economic development, fines,
  dissertation abstracts, music therapy, ACM,
  wolfcopy, Oxford English Dictionary, audio,
  illegal immigration, schedule, interlibrary,
  datamonitor, chemistry, JAMA, stephen king, CRC,
  photography, vision, wiley, citation builder,
  job, andrew pace, academic search elite, ria,
  film studies, career development, sanborn maps,
  citation index, iee, history, industry analysis,
  scholarly journals, sitation builder, hamlet,
  ethics, spss, petition, animal behavior, psych
  info, repository, ENR, diabetes, data, lrl,
  cancer, textbooks, wharton, Christian Science
  Monitor, ITTC, blah, PubMed, time magazine,
  nutrition, book return, DVD, questia, conductive
  heat transfer, sage, newspaper, mp3 player,
  enzyme lactase, digital media lab, american
  journal of psychology

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Motivation

• Search Logs
• acm digital, ILL, policies, standard,
  international economic development, fines,
  dissertation abstracts, music therapy, ACM,
  wolfcopy, Oxford English Dictionary, audio,
  illegal immigration, schedule, interlibrary,
  datamonitor, chemistry, JAMA, stephen king, CRC,
  photography, vision, wiley, citation builder,
  job, andrew pace, academic search elite, ria,
  film studies, career development, sanborn maps,
  citation index, iee, history, industry analysis,
  scholarly journals, sitation builder, hamlet,
  ethics, spss, petition, animal behavior, psych
  info, repository, ENR, diabetes, data, lrl,
  cancer, textbooks, wharton, Christian Science
  Monitor, ITTC, blah, PubMed, time magazine,
  nutrition, book return, DVD, questia, conductive
  heat transfer, sage, newspaper, mp3 player,
  enzyme lactase, digital media lab, american
  journal of psychology

10
Motivation

• Search Logs
• acm digital, ILL, policies, standard,
  international economic development, fines,
  dissertation abstracts, music therapy, ACM,
  wolfcopy, Oxford English Dictionary, audio,
  illegal immigration, schedule, interlibrary,
  datamonitor, chemistry, JAMA, stephen king, CRC,
  photography, vision, wiley, citation builder,
  job, andrew pace, academic search elite, ria,
  film studies, career development, sanborn maps,
  citation index, iee, history, industry analysis,
  scholarly journals, sitation builder, hamlet,
  ethics, spss, petition, animal behavior, psych
  info, repository, ENR, diabetes, data, lrl,
  cancer, textbooks, wharton, Christian Science
  Monitor, ITTC, blah, PubMed, time magazine,
  nutrition, book return, DVD, questia, conductive
  heat transfer, sage, newspaper, mp3 player,
  enzyme lactase, digital media lab, american
  journal of psychology

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The Challenge

• Can we develop a truly useful single
• search box interface to the library?

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The State of Library Search

• Many dedicated discovery tools
• Catalog search
• Journal finders
• Database finders
• Article metasearch
• Subject guides/portals
• Library website search

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The State of Library Search
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The State of Library Search

• Problems
• Assumes users know they need to select a
  dedicated discovery tool
• Assumes users know which discovery tool they
  should select for their search
• Sometimes the librarys information architecture
  does not make this selection process easy

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Quick Search at NCSU

• A unified search interface to the library
• Not a replacement for dedicated discovery tools!
• A simplified single search box interface
• Goal is to direct users to the appropriate
  library discovery tool, collection or resource
  for their search

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Quick Search at NCSU
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Quick Search at NCSU
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Design Principles

• Search must be fast (sub-second)
• Results must be intuitive (like Google)
• Modular construction rather than a
  one-size-fits-all solution
• Optimize each module for a specific search problem

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Quick Search Modules

• Best Bets
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Library Web Pages
• Catalog Results (in development)
• Journal Title Matches (in development)
• Find Articles

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Best Bets
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Best Bets
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Best Bets
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Best Bets

• Goal
• Quick access to high demand resources
• How it works
• Specialized index of featured links to our most
  popular resources
• Keyword-based retrieval returns the single most
  relevant Best Bet link, if any

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Frequently Asked Questions
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Frequently Asked Questions
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Frequently Asked Questions
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Frequently Asked Questions

• Goal
• Answers to common library questions
• How it works
• Searches our homegrown FAQ database
• Displays the top two matches from our FAQ
  database, if any

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Library Web Pages
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Library Web Pages
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Library Web Pages

• Goal
• Provide relevant Google-style library website
  search results
• How it works
• Locally managed search engine crawls library
  website once a week

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Catalog Results
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Catalog Results
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Catalog Results

• Goal
• Direct users to native catalog interface for
  catalog specific searches
• How it works
• Remote request to the Catalog for
• Top three matching titles
• Top five matching Format facet values

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Journal Title Matches
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Journal Title Matches
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Journal Title Matches
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Journal Title Matches

• Goal
• Provide direct links to journals for known item
  journal title searches
• How it works
• Remote request to the Journal List for the top
  three matching titles
• Only displays if there is a direct match

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Find Articles

• Article search toughest nut to crack
• Library metasearch is slow and poorly ranked,
  making direct integration of metasearch results
  difficult to do well
• Google Scholar is fast, but does not accurately
  represent library holdings
• The Find Articles Module is a stop-gap until
  something better comes along

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Find Articles
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Find Articles
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Find Articles
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Find Articles

• Goal
• Direct users to the best place to initiate an
  article search
• How it works
• Quick article search passes search to Academic
  Search Premier
• Subject links go to subject portal page listing
  core databases mapped to the subject

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Technology

• Built using open source technologies
• PHP for website programming
• SWISH-E for local content indexing
• Nutch for website search results
• MySQL for FAQ database
• Ajax for catalog and journal results
• Not a standalone product
• Highly customized to our infrastructure

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Usage Statistics
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Usage Statistics
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Usage Statistics
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More Information

• Project Site
• http//www.lib.ncsu.edu/dli/projects/quicksearch/

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Thanks!

• Tito Sierra
• NCSU Libraries
• tito_sierra_at_ncsu.edu