kcenter_search

"The University of Calgary's Libraries and Cultural Resources became a beta partner with Serials Solutions' unified discovery service, Summon, in the spring of 2009. Since then it has worked to include metadata from numerous disparate systems in a single index to drive discovery in a Google-like environment. The University of Calgary has examined how MARC and other metadata schemas are mapped into Summon with an eye to ensuring the maximum possible population of index fields representing facets in addition to adhering to the established standards for cross mapping metadata schemas and indexing. The University of Calgary has investigated existing standards and worked closely with the Summon team to create mappings that reflect how MARC and other metadata can ultimately be used in big indexes. Combined with the normalization or collapsing of metadata records representing the same resource into a single metadata-rich record, fully leveraging MARC and other metadata in big indexes should not only level the metadata playing field but make competition between records a non-issue."

"We recently had a visit from Serials Solutions staff to talk about Summon. We are currently running an Endeca based catalog we call Mango for 11 State University Libraries. We were told that there are a couple of options for implementing Summon, one is to switch to their interface and use it as your whole catalog, with articles metadata integrated into your search results. The other option is to use their API to integrate the article searching into your next-gen catalog."

This article will explore the space between Summon's out-of-the-box user interface and full developer API, providing practical advice on tweaking configuration information and catalog exports to take full advantage of Summon's indexing and faceting features. The article then describes the creation of OSUL's home-grown open source availability service which replaced and enhanced the availability information that Summon would normally pull directly from the catalog.

"EBSCO A-to-Z®, un répertoire automatiquement actualisé pour une meilleure valorisation de l'information électronique. EBSCO A-to-Z est un catalogue électronique des ressources documentaires, entièrement personnalisé. Il répertorie plus de 350 000 titres issus de plus de 3 200 bases de données et bouquets de revues électroniques. Conçu pour valoriser les ressources de type périodique auxquelles vous êtes abonné, EBSCO A-to-Z propose un accès simplifié à des revues et livres électroniques, bases de données en texte intégral, packages éditeurs, revues au format papier. Ainsi, vous bénéficiez de votre propre répertoire de ressources électroniques et de la mise à jour automatique des liens URLs de ces dernières, quel que soit le mode d'acquisition des ressources concernées."

"We learned that they've turned on a new back end that greatly increases the speed of the product, with 80% of all searches being fully returned in 1 second or less. Go ahead and try it with the U of Calgary implementation. Don't like a hosted URL? Check out what the U of Virgina has done with the Summon API for their mobile interface! There's a lot of long-tail stuff out there. One of the content managers pointed out that the average academic library holds 24% of Ulrich's Core Journals, and Summon has 40%. I'm really revitalized over this project, and will be heading back to Calgary with an aim towards cleaning up our metadata in order to really leverage Summon. Lots of good stuff coming in the next few months."

"This map lists libraries with "next generation catalogs", with a focus on homegrown solutions or libraries that make a special effort in tweaking commercial products. "

* Blacklight * Evergreen * Kochief * Koha * Scriblio * SOPAC * VuFind

"In addition to Discovery products created by commercial companies, a number of alternatives have emerged in the open source arena. These open source products allow libraries to follow a more experimental approach in establishing their nextgeneration discovery interface strategy. Libraries can download and install the software on a test server, load sample data sets, and customize it without the need to make a major commitment or financial outlay. They can even experiment with multiple products. Theavailability of these open source products allows a library to make an initial investigation of a new generation interface and gain hands-on experience, even if they might eventually decide to purchase a commercial product. In the open source discovery interface arena, VUfind stands as the dominant product. The Mellon-funded eXtensible Catalog project has been underway for about 2 years and will soon be releasing software. Other open source discovery technologies emerging include the University of Virginia's Blacklight and OpenBib, which is an example of discovery interfaces developed internationally."

"With support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, a multinational group of libraries is developing the design for an Open Library Environment (OLE), an alternative to the current model of an Integrated Library System. The goal is to produce a design document to inform open source library system development efforts, to guide future library system implementations, and to influence current Integrated Library System vendor products."

"A pilot of the WorldCat Digital Collection Gateway is currently underway, which allows you to upload the metadata of your digital content to WorldCat from any OAI-compliant digital repository. (Previously, the Gateway was only integrated with CONTENTdm repositories.) Once your metadata is in WorldCat, your collections are more visible and discoverable by end users who search WorldCat.org, WorldCat Local and WorldCat Local "quick start", as well as Google, Yahoo! and other popular Web sites."

Summon at the University of Huddersfield http://library.hud.ac.uk/summon

"Depuis que j'ai mentionné ici l'achat d'un résolveur de liens OpenURL, je reçois, tous les 2 ou 3 jours, un mail me demandant comment nous avons choisi. Je mets la réponse ici (hors questions tarifaires, bien sûr). Je me suis appuyé sur l'article de Ross Singer dans Computers in Libraries de février 2006: Helping you buy: link resolver tools."

"Charge: - Explore metasearch services on the marketplace, including open source services. - Bring in vendors to demonstrate services. - Identify sites using these services. - Document comparisons, including functionality, what is needed to set up, what level staff to implement, cost differences, strengths and weakness. How would the service work with Collection Search Center? SIRIS? - Make recommendations for what and how to implement."

"A simple componentised framework constructed in Javascript to enable the sharing of Ajax Style extensions to a web interface. Although the drive for this is rooted in Library OPAC interfaces, the framework is applicable to any environment which, via identifiers contained within a html page, needs to link to or embed external resources. "

"My primary concern relates to the management of data and the suitability of search functions to allow for academic coverage that is comprehensive without being overwhelming. For example, a basic search of the term UK Transport Policy through Summon reveals nearly 60,000 results on the University of Huddersfield's Library website. There are of course filters to help sort the data, but my first impression is that these are not particularly effective (I also find the automatic updating of the results after the selection of a single filtering item to be very frustrating). Similarly, having had a brief play around with it, I find the advanced search feature slightly confusing with regards to the search terms that it uses (this assessment must be quantified by the fact that I speak as a regular user of MetaLib, so am of course used to the nuances of that particular system). For novice users of the system then, I wonder if they might just find it all a bit too much!?"

"One of the topics of discussion at last week's Summon Advisory Board was the status of de-duping records returned by Summon. On the face of it it seems to be a simple issue - if the titles and authors match, throw the duplicate records out and you're good to go. The Summon technical team explained why it's a little harder than that though. "

"My coworkers and I have been working with Summon over the last few months, and I have a few additional observations about how it's different from federated search:"

"In acknowledging the Web as the platform for searching, sharing, aggregating and extending information, librarians need to familiarize themselves with the semantic web (an extension of the current web), learn new tools, techniques and trends. Most importantly for catalogers, they need to educate themselves in RDA (Resource Description and Access) which may soon replace AACR2 and MARC 21 as the new cataloging rules and standards. RDA is a set of guidelines evolved from AACR2 and is constructed on the framework of FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) and FRAD (Functional Requirements of Authority Data). The application of which is meant to direct the library catalog in providing better access to Web resources. Instead of being a display standard of library catalog using AACR2, RDA is a content standard that attempts to improve the way catalogers describe and present elements, entities and their relationships and roles in the bibliographic world. It is also the intention of RDA to make data in library catalog play a better role in the Web environment. Moreover, RDA is supposedly more flexible and adaptable in that it may be used with many encoding schema such as MODS, MARC, Dublin Core, etc."

"Summon occasionally fails to successfully link to articles in EBSCO databases. Instead, the full-text article link drops users at a more general EBSCO search screen and it's not clear how to get to the actual article. (...) Some vendors do not provide article-level linking. * Summon will provide a direct link to articles available through the NCSU Libraries. Sometimes, however, Summon only provides a link to a Journal, or the article link fails to turn up the full text. This is due to a lack of article-level links available through some publishers. "

"Serial Solutions just released their database recommender feature and it is now live on our site. It currently produces a recommendation for a specific list of resources based on matched triggers, and only shows databases to which you subscribe. As they go forward, the range of what is recommended will continue to grow. Recommendations will also be triggered from a wider range of factors, including analysis of both the search terms and results set. The list of databases that are currently recommended are listed below."