Improving the Catalogue Interface using Endeca Tito Sierra NCSU Libraries

Outline Motivation Demo Technical Overview Implementation Stats and Usability Future Plans

Motivation Improve the quality of the library catalogue user experience Exploit our existing authority infrastructure (aka make MARC data work harder)

What is Endeca? Software company based in Cambridge, MA Search and information access technology provider for several major commercial websites Developers of the Endeca Information Access Platform

Why Endeca? Relevance ranking of results Browse Improved subject access Performance / speed

Demo

Key Features Relevance ranking Faceted browse True browse Search comforts Spell correction “Did you mean…” Stemming Sort options

Relevance Ranking Based on an ordering of modules: 1.Original query match 2.Phrase match 3.Field match (tiered) 4.Number of fields matched 5.Weighted frequency (TF/IDF) 6.Publication date descending 7.Circulation stats descending

Faceted Browse Search and browse in single interface Layered facet refinement Filter results across multiple dimensions Facet deselection

Facet Refinements Availability Author Library Format Language New LC Classification Subject: Topic Subject: Genre Subject: Region Subject: Era

True Browse Entrypoint into the catalog based on Library of Congress Classification

Search Comforts Spell correction “Did you mean…” Stemming Sort options (e.g. publication date, most popular, call number)

Big Wins Relevance ranking Speed / performance Locally managed presentation interface Persistent parameter based entrypoints

Features Not Supported Work level aggregations / roll-up Customization / personalization Folksonomies / user contributed content Recommender functionality Shopping cart functionality

Technical Overview Endeca co-exists with SirsiDynix Unicorn ILS and Web2 online catalog Endeca handles keyword search Web2 handles authority search and detail page display Endeca indexes MARC records exported nightly from Unicorn Endeca = discovery portion of the ILS

Technical Overview Raw MARC data NCSU exports and reformats Flat text files Data Foundry Parse text files Indices MDEX Engine NCSU Web Application HTTP Information Access Platform

Technical Overview Raw MARC data NCSU exports and reformats Flat text files Data Foundry Parse text files Indices MDEX Engine NCSU Web Application HTTP Offline - Nightly

Technical Overview Raw MARC data NCSU exports and reformats Flat text files Data Foundry Parse text files Indices MDEX Engine NCSU Web Application HTTP Always Online

Implementation Team Seven member team 5 IT staff, 1 cataloging librarian, 1 reference librarian Timeline License / negotiation: Spring 2005 Software acquisition: Summer 2005 Implementation: Aug 2005 to Jan 2006

Implementation Challenges Deciding which facets to surface as navigation refinements Designing the user interface Optimizing the relevance ranking algorithm Optimizing the faceted navigation display

Usage Statistics

Usability Testing 10 undergraduate students 5 with new Endeca-based interface 5 with old catalog interface Data collected Task difficulty/failure Task duration

Usability Testing

Post Launch Enhancements Relevance ranking tweaks Facet organization and labeling improvements Backend data cleanup (e.g. global subfield assignment changes)

Future Plans Aggregated work display (“roll-up”) More browsing options Interface improvements and continued usability testing Web Services interfaces Search results in RSS/OpenSearch format Catalog Availability Web Service

Reflections Right tool for right job Benefit of small teams Local iterative development Catalog interface only part of the puzzle

More Information “Magnifying the ILS with Endeca,” The Serials Librarian, 51(3/4), “Toward a 21st Century Library Catalog,” Information Technologies and Libraries, 23(3), 2006.

Thanks Tito Sierra Digital Technologies Development Librarian