Using Endeca for a Catalog Interface

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Using Endeca for a Catalog Interface

• So, yeah, the catalog sucks, but what are you
  going to do about it?

Andrew K. Pace Head, Information Technology NCSU
Libraries andrew_pace_at_ncsu.edu
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OPAC Complainers

• There is certainly no dearth of OPAC
  complainers. You have Andrew Pace (OPACs suck),
  and Roy Tennant (You Cant Put Lipstick on a Pig)
  writing and presenting about the need for change
  (more simplicity) in the OPAC world. I can
  appreciate their arguments for a simpler OPAC
  (not to mention the rest of the system) but other
  then present their arguments, neither has much in
  the way of suggestions nor have they sparked a
  movement among librarians or the automation
  vendors to do anything about the situation.
• -ACRL Blog entry

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Overview

• The State of the Market
• Purchase decision
• Implementation team
• Technical overview
• Features
• Interface decisions
• The future

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NextGen OPAC

• The Next Generation OPAC is more than just a
  facelift
• Vivisimo clustered search (demo)
• Aquabrowser visual context (demo)
• RLG FRBR combined holdings (demo)
• Endeca faceted search (demo)
• More products on the horizon
• Innovative Interfaces OPAC Pro
• SirsiDynix Enterprise Portal System
• Ex Libris, Talis, et al?Web Services
• OCLC Custom Worldcat

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Pursuit of Features

• Endeca, et al
• Relevance Ranking
• Faceted Browsing
• True Browsing (LC)
• Speed
• Spell-checking
• Automatic stemming
• Did you mean

• Unicorn / Web2
• Last-in / First-out
• Authority index links
• Query required
• As if
• No
• No
• No

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Purchase Decision

• Lots of broad topical keyword searches
• Authority infrastructure underutilized
• No relevancy ranking of results
• Opportunity to partner with Endeca

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Implementation Team

• Andrew Pace, Systems, Chair
• Cindy Levine, Research and Information Services
• Emily Lynema, Systems, ex officio (tech lead)
• Erik Moore, Systems, ex officio (ILS librarian)
• Charley Pennell, Cataloging
• Shirley Rodgers, Systems
• Tito Sierra, Digital Library Initiatives

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Technical Overview

• Endeca ProFind co-exists with SirsiDynix Unicorn
  ILS and Web2 online catalog.
• Endeca indexes MARC records exported from
  Unicorn.
• Index is refreshed nightly with records
  added/updated during previous day.

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Endeca ProFind Overview

• Endecas ProFind software is responsible for
• Ingesting and indexing reformatted NCSU data.
• Creating a back-end service that responds to
  queries with result sets.
• NCSU is responsible for
• Reformatting MARC records into something Endeca
  application can parse.
• Keeping these reformatted records up to date.
• Building the web application that users see.
• Sending queries to Endeca back-end service and
  displaying results.

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Data Extraction

• First, extract MARC data for import into Endeca.

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MARC to ??

• Endeca doesnt understand MARC records.
• MARC ? flat text file(s) for ingest by Endeca.
• Creates opportunity to manipulate data on the
  back-end.

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Formatted Extract
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Nightly Update

• Each night a script updates the data indexed by
  Endeca
• Exports updated or new MARC records from Unicorn.
• Reformats and merges these records with those
  already indexed.
• Starts Endeca re-index completely rebuilding
  index for the catalog.
• Process requires about 7 hours.

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Interface Decisions

• Search interface pages
• Full view holdings display
• Order of dimensions

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Search Interface Pages

• Problem How to provide Endeca keyword searching
  and Web2 authority searching while keeping the
  search interface as close to the one box
  approach as possible.

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Pre-Endeca Catalog Search

• 6 search tabs
• 14 radio buttons
• 1-4 drop down boxes

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Endeca Catalog Search

• 3 search tabs
• No radio buttons
• 2 search boxes
• Keyword search default

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Full-View Holdings Display

• Problem Communicate whether a resource is
  available and where it is located in a usable
  fashion.

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Pre-Endeca Results List

• Too many boxes, lines, and shaded areas.
• Elements for a single record not visually grouped.

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First version of results page wireframe (8 total
iterations). Ideas drawn from Web2,
RedLightGreen, Amazon, etc.
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Brief view vs. Full view gives user choice about
displaying holdings.
5th Revision Attempt to aggregate holdings
information by call number. Particularly
confusing for online resources.
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Reduces complexity of continuing and online
resources.
8th (and Final) Revision Aggregate holdings
information by library.
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Dimension Display

• Problem With 10 dimensions to display on the
  results page, where should they appear (and in
  what order)?
• Goal Give high visibility to dimensions that
  will be most valuable to users, but also
  highlight useful dimensions that may represent
  new concepts.

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LCC and Availability dimensions first draft
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9. Availability
10. Library of Congress Classification

1. Subject Topic
2. Subject Genre
3. Format
4. Library
5. Subject Region
6. Subject Era
7. Language
8. Author

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Quick Demo

• http//catalog.lib.ncsu.edu

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Challenges

• Using LCSH like its never been used before
• Using LC Classification for collection browsing
• Integration with Web2 and authority searching
• Creeping Featuritis
• FRBR (Record Rollup)
• Authority File ? Endeca Thesaurus
• Uncharted territory

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Future Plans

• Ongoing tweaks
• Relevance ranking algorithms spell correction
  thresholds
• Display fixes/enhancements
• Additional browsing options
• Endeca 2.0 ideas
• FRBR-ized display more on this in a minute
• Discussions with OCLC regarding FAST (Faceted
  Access to Subject Terms)
• Build detail page in Endeca with live item data
  from Oracle
• Shopping cart functionality for email/export of
  records
• Enrich records with supplemental content more
  usable TOCs, book reviews, etc.
• The death of authority searching (?)

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FRBR Rollup

• Explore Endecas built-in rollup functionality.
• Need to create a single text key to roll up
  individual records for different editions into a
  single work result.
• Looking at using author/title keys as outlined in
  the Library of Congress FRBR display tool
  algorithm.

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Users performs keyword search for iliad
Single aggregate record represents 73 actual
records different editions of Iliad with Homer
as author
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Click on See all editions to view individual
publication and holdings information for each
aggregated result.
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Some User Reaction

• This is absolutely the coolest thing I've seen
  all century.
• Will Owen, Head of Systems (UNC Libraries)
• Also, I'm really digging the new NCSU library
  catalog. Very nice."
• - Educause staff (non-librarian)
• The new Endeca system is incredible. It would be
  difficult to exaggerate how much better it is
  than our old online card catalog (and therefore
  that of most other universities). I've found
  myself searching the catalog just for fun,
  whereas before it was a chore to find what I
  needed.
• - NCSU Undergrad, Statistics

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Thanks

• http//www.lib.ncsu.edu/endeca
• Andrew Pace
• andrew_pace_at_ncsu.edu
• Emily Lynema
• emily_lynema_at_ncsu.edu