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A Faceted Interface to the Library Catalog

A Faceted Interface to the Library Catalog. Tito Sierra NCSU Libraries ALA Midwinter Meeting January 20, 2007. Outline. Motivation Demo Key Features Faceted Navigation Facet Usage Statistics Implementation Challenges Reflections. Motivation. Improve the library catalog user experience

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A Faceted Interface to the Library Catalog

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

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

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

  4. 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

  5. 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

  6. Why Endeca? • Configurable relevance ranking • Improved response time • Better search features • Better subject access by turning metadata into facets

  7. Demo

  8. Key Features • Relevance ranking • Search comforts • True browse • Faceted navigation

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

  10. Search Comforts • “Did you mean…” suggestions • Automatic spell correction • Stemming • Sort options

  11. True Browse • Browse by Library of Congress Classification without entering search terms

  12. Faceted Navigation • What is it? • Why do it?

  13. What is Faceted Navigation?

  14. 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

  15. 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

  16. Faceted Navigation on the Web

  17. Faceted Navigation on the Web

  18. Faceted Navigation on the Web

  19. Faceted Navigation in Libraries

  20. Faceted Navigation in Libraries

  21. Faceted Navigation in Libraries

  22. Faceted Navigation in Libraries

  23. Availability Author Library Format Language Browse: New LC Classification Subject: Topic Subject: Genre Subject: Region Subject: Era Facets Implemented at NCSU

  24. Facet Usage Statistics July - November 2006

  25. Facet Usage Statistics July - November 2006

  26. Facet Usage Statistics July - November 2006

  27. Implementation Challenges • Facet selection • Interface design • Data issues

  28. Facet Selection

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

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

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

  32. Data Issues • ILS data with MARC-8 encoding => 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

  33. 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

  34. 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).

  35. Thanks! Tito Sierra Asst. Head of Digital Library Development NCSU Libraries tito_sierra@ncsu.edu

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