CDL’s Metasearch Infrastructure ICOLC, Boston April 13, 2005 Laine Farley, Director Digital Library Services

The “Holy Grail” of Resource Discovery One-stop shopping Simplify a complex task User focuses on results, not on where to search

Metasearching at CDL: A Brief History 1997: UC San Diego creates Database Advisor 1999: CDL creates metasearch tool based on DBA 2000: SearchLight launched : CDL looks beyond SL : Commercial products arrive 2003: CDL Metasearch Infrastructure project

Metasearching at CDL: A Brief History 2004: RFP “bakeoff” – consortial model 2004: Metalib installed, v : Reality sets in…

Lessons Learned from SearchLight Metasearching is worth doing (many users want it) For a large research library, focus on specific audience, subject, task, format Service should be placed as close to the user as possible

Lessons Learned from SearchLight Size of result set isn’t as important as how the results are displayed (e.g., relevance) All things being equal, one place to search is better than two or more “Good enough” is often just that Only librarians like to search, everyone else wants to find

Prototypes Two campus partners –“Smart Start” – undergrads (UCSC, UCLA) –“European Studies” – faculty (UCLA) Two grant projects –National Science Digital Library – Geology? –Hewlett Foundation - American West

“Vanilla” Interface

Usability testing / Focus Groups Upper division undergrads – UCB –Google: use to get started but not for “real” –Already know “their” database(s) –more options for limiting –Some still wanted metasearch - multidisciplinary

Lower division undergrads – UC Santa Cruz “A Google search will probably give me celebrity gossip” but…useful for terms, narrowing topic “If you can’t trust the library to give you good information, who can you trust? “ “I don’t know what all these databases are” Various usability problems

Custom Interface UCLA – European Studies –Help develop processes, workflow –Develop templates for other campuses –Research oriented –Not all resources can be searched

Custom Interface - 2 National Science Digital Library –Test integration of NSDL content with academic library resources –Proof of concept – may not become production service

Custom Interface – 3 American West –OAI harvested metadata - primary –Licensed databases for UC users - secondary

Developments to Date Ex Libris –X-server enhancements NISO Metasearch –SRU/SRW “light”

Development CDL: –Harvesting tools –ATE: Analyze, Transform, Enrich –UI and Common Framework UCLA: –Analyzing targets –Testing groupings

Timeline Fall 2005? –NSDL –UCLA European Integration –Smart Start Spring 2005 –American West

Future Possibilities Medical texts (e.g., MDConsult equivalent) Images East Asian

What keeps me awake at night Walmart (Target?) vs boutique –Just in case vs just in time –Commodity vs crafted Search vs services –Users want to find, but also use

What keeps me awake at night If you can’t trust the library… –What is the value of selection, curation, expertise

Stay tuned…. Questions? Project Manager