Metasearch requirements for MIT Deborah Helman Tracy Gabridge ASEE 2004 Annual Conference & Exposition Salt Lake City, UT June 22, 2004

ASEE 2004 Annual Conference & Exposition, Salt Lake City, UT June 22, 2004 What’s taken so long? MIT user community is unique MIT Libraries needed a vision for resource management and access

ASEE 2004 Annual Conference & Exposition, Salt Lake City, UT June 22, 2004 Why now at MIT? More evolved metasearch tools Complexity of information environment continues to increase Feedback indicates strong desire: undergrads interdisciplinary researchers Increasing user self-sufficiency made a priority in our vision for reference services

ASEE 2004 Annual Conference & Exposition, Salt Lake City, UT June 22, 2004 Goals for our Metasearch Tool Simplify search and discovery Educate users about appropriate resources Replicate reference interview Provide prioritized results Provide a scalable system

ASEE 2004 Annual Conference & Exposition, Salt Lake City, UT June 22, 2004 Discovery/ Metasearch Analysis Group Coordinate the efforts functional requirements groups. Identify products and solutions that might meet each set of requirements. Recommend a solution Database Discovery Tool Group Specify functional requirements for ‘resource’ discovery Metasearch Group Specify functional requirements for metasearch

ASEE 2004 Annual Conference & Exposition, Salt Lake City, UT June 22, 2004 Database Discovery Tool Purpose: Allow users to efficiently narrow their cross- database search to only relevant resources Teach them along the way Show more than just electronic databases Capture skills of a reference librarian Similar to Smart Database Selector project at UIUC (Tim Cole and Wei Ma)

ASEE 2004 Annual Conference & Exposition, Salt Lake City, UT June 22, 2004 How to make it work More metadata about our resources Hierarchical subjects Engineering  Civil Engineering  Transportation Scope of the user’s project short paper, dissertation, background information Types of information sought peer-reviewed articles, books, facts, reviews Dates of coverage Member of what community MIT main campus, MIT Lincoln Lab, alumni, visitor Database Discovery Tool

ASEE 2004 Annual Conference & Exposition, Salt Lake City, UT June 22, 2004 Faceted Browse Demo browse.html Database Discovery Tool

ASEE 2004 Annual Conference & Exposition, Salt Lake City, UT June 22, 2004 Metasearch Requirements Defined target audience Reviewed current state of industry Adapted from “Portal Functional Requirement for the Library of Congress,” July draft Prioritized requirements

ASEE 2004 Annual Conference & Exposition, Salt Lake City, UT June 22, 2004 DDT/Metasearch Analysis Group (DMAG) Process While functional requirements are progressing Who are the vendors in metasearch? First pass of vendors, cut the list in half What resources are the most important for cross- searching? What test cases do we want to set up with the vendors? Second pass of vendors, get down to 3 After requirements are reviewed and ready Invite vendors, go through scenarios and test cases, gather feedback, make a recommendation

ASEE 2004 Annual Conference & Exposition, Salt Lake City, UT June 22, 2004 Next steps June 2004 – Choose 3 vendors July Final review of requirements with stakeholders Fall 2004 – Final recommendation

ASEE 2004 Annual Conference & Exposition, Salt Lake City, UT June 22, 2004 Questions? Deborah Helman Tracy Gabridge