SIGALO

Serials Interest Group for Academic Libraries in Oklahoma
Nov. 11, 2005
Oklahoma Christian University
Gaylord University Ctr., Gotcher Room

Program Chair Linda Taylor opened the meeting and thanked the Program Team members. She introduced Tammie Willis of Oklahoma Christian, our hostess. Tammie spoke of the history of SIGALO and gave a short memorial to Judy Wilkerson, who was her mentor in the early days of SIGALO. Then, Beverly Dowdy spoke about her relationship with Judy, who played a founding role in establishing the union list of Oklahoma.

Ad Hoc Workshop Committee

Linda introduced Michael Kim, who is the chair of the Ad Hoc Workshop Committee. Michael reported on the SCCTP Serials Holdings Workshop. 22 participants attended the Workshop on Nov. 3-4 at OSU-Tulsa Conference Center, and it generated a balance of $199.00 for SIGALO. The Workshop leader, Lisa Furhbotten, has volunteered to lead another workshop on Advanced Serials Cataloging next spring. She could also leader an Electronic Serials Cataloging Workshop jointly at the same time, as a three-day unit. The group’s discussion centered on a workshop location, and it was agreed that it could again be held at OSU-Tulsa.

There was another workshop idea: training on union listing in Connexion. AMIGOS training workshops can be very expensive, however. Co-Ming Chan said that a workshop on union listing in Oklahoma would be useful, and the group agreed. The Ad Hoc Committee will explore that option.

 New Business

Michele Seikel mentioned that affiliation with OLA had been suggested at the OLA Leadership Retreat, and there was discussion of how OLA requires membership and minimum registration fees. Michele will try to get more information about affiliation from the OLA Membership Committee and report back at the next meeting, if possible.

 Federated Searching

After the break, David Landis from Serials Solutions was introduced, and he made a presentation on federated searching. He talked about what federated searching is, a product that allows users to search many library and web resources simultaneously, using a single interface. He emphasized that the user can only search as many resources as the vendor can support. Keyword searching, uses open URL linking, but is not the same thing as linking.

David explained that it helps patrons to have a single starting point without having to choose among a sea of databases, and doesn’t require them to learn the use of numerous interfaces. One of the advantages of federated searching is that it brings users to lesser-known databases. Also, patrons get results fast, without a lot of training, which doesn’t reach everyone. Experienced searchers have more options, with limiting capabilities, sorting, and filtering. A good product should include full-text, OPACs, eBooks, websites, databases, and other search engines, including Goodle and Amazon, indexes and abstracts.

Some federated search products can’t search all resources, however. Resources that don’t use the Z3950 standard or have a translator for it are left out, and vendors must create their own translators. It’s important when negotiating for a product to get a firm timeline on when a must-have resource will be available for searching.

David emphasized that federated searching can’t be completely relevancy ranked because of abstracts and indexes, which contain only short summaries of works. Also, different vendors provide different relevancy ranking schemes. The customer should ask a vendor to prove they can provide complete relevancy ranking.

Also, federated searching is not as good as going directly to the single databases, but patrons won’t necessarily know how to get to them. Each database vendor has a proprietary interface with its own functionality, with difference ways of authenticating and connecting, which can change, so it’s difficult. Federated searching is not a simple technology. It is grappling with an enormous amount of metadata and various authentication and connection methods.

Any federated search product should mask authentication for patrons, and access should use the same method as access to an OPAC. Vendors should be using architecture that will support Z3950 , XML gateways, HTTP connections, HTML, and proprietary databases.

The customer should check to find out if a locally held in-house database can support a federated search product. If not, it could blow up. Federated searching puts pressure on servers, and requires database vendors to upgrade their server connections, which many of them are unwilling to do. Translators are used to do web searching inside databases. Goodle calls this web scraping.

Federated search products can be hosted (the vendor’s server)  or non-hosted (your own server). They can be locally installed, but maintenance is a lot of work and requires considerable expertise. Vendor installation provides backups and does the work for you. You can still customize your interface with a hosted application, and don’t have to buy a server. The vendor should use high security standards.

It is wise to negotiate prices, since the market is increasingly competitive, but get everything you want the vendor to deliver in writing. Future features of these product will include XML gateways, results clustering, better relevancy ranking, personalized searching, and more connections. A product should be easy to use, should be capable of being implemented in 90 days, and give direct access to the most relevant information. You should be able to limit to specific databases or subjects, or place a search box on faculty websites. The vendor should also give excellent support, responding within 24 hours.

Questions to ask vendors;

How many resources can we connect to?

Which of my local resources can you support?

How long does it take to implement?

How much can I customize?

How fast is searching?

Mr. Landis did a product demo of the Serials Solutions product, Central Search. It searches the knowledge base on ISSN’s, and uses their open URL link resolver. It’s a hosted product, and is completely customizable. The company is releasing a version that will search only peer-reviewed or full-text, or a specific date range.

 After lunch, Lynda West report on the Metafind product from a librarian’s perspective. Metafind is produced by III, Northwestern’s ILS vendor. She reported that it was a good deal financially, and that her library’s director felt they should have a product ready in conjunction with their new ILS in October 2004. Their library tested it for several months wile they also brought up their ILS. They also looked at other universities’ interface designs. Challenges of implementation involve decisions about how to structure the interface. She showed their search page as it changed during the first 8 months. She mentioned that Northwestern hasn’t added authentication unless the user requests full text, so anyone can use their federated searching if they don’t want full-text.

Elaine Bradshaw discussed the product that OU implemented, Web Feet. She said that the major reason they purchased it was ease of implementation. They put in 119 databases, including all full-text and abstracts and indexes. The biggest problem has been selling it to the public services librarians, who find it hard to explain and use. Also, they had discussions about wording on their interface, and problems with searching some of the interfaces.

 Christina Biles spoke about setting up Central Search at OSU. The product is due to be rolled out by finals week for the fall semester. OSU decided to roll Central Search out in stages, beginning with the databases that are easy to set up and do talk to Serials Solutions. Smaller databases are often not willing to do the work. OSU tested the Central Search software with a group of students. They learned from the students that they want to put in only keywords, get the results, and not use advanced seaching options. Graduate students and faculty are different, but OSU doesn’t plan to market to them yet.

 Afzal talked about implementing Metafind at Cameron University. They divided their interface by science/technology, business resources, and major databases like WilsonSelectPlus. They are implementing now, and plan to launch by the spring semester. Cameron plans an interface that makes users choose by subject. They will also put their library catalog and A-Z databases on the federated searching page, so users can choose to search everything or choose a selection of resources.

 Next meeting

Linda Taylor asked for volunteer hosts for the Spring 2006 SIGALO meeting, and Afzal volunteered to host at Cameron University Library in Lawton.

Respectfully submitted by Michele Seikel, OSU Libraries

Last Updated: July 24, 2007

Page designed and maintained by:
Dana Belcher
East Central University
Linscheid Library
1100 E. 14th
Ada, OK 74820-6999
580-559-5564