A Single Search Box Interface to the NCSU Libraries

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

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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

11. The Challenge Can we develop a truly useful single search box interface to the library?

12. The State of Library Search Many dedicated discovery tools: • Catalog search • Journal finders • Database finders • Article metasearch • Subject guides/portals • Library website search

13. The State of Library Search

14. 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 library’s information architecture does not make this selection process easy

15. 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

16. Quick Search at NCSU

17. Quick Search at NCSU

18. 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

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

20. Best Bets

21. Best Bets

22. Best Bets

23. 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

24. Frequently Asked Questions

25. Frequently Asked Questions

26. Frequently Asked Questions

27. 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

28. Library Web Pages

29. Library Web Pages

30. 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

31. Catalog Results

32. Catalog Results

33. 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

34. Journal Title Matches

35. Journal Title Matches

36. Journal Title Matches

37. 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

38. 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

39. Find Articles

40. Find Articles

41. Find Articles

42. 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

43. 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

44. Usage Statistics

45. Usage Statistics

46. Usage Statistics

47. More Information Project Site: http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/dli/projects/quicksearch/

48. Thanks! Tito Sierra NCSU Libraries tito_sierra@ncsu.edu