leaping in with both feet faceted browse at the uofc james mouw the university of chicago...
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Leaping in with both feetFaceted Browse at the UofC
James Mouw
The University of Chicago
The big question – Why?
• Traditional catalog paper-centric and bound to MARC records
• 1970’s technology and increasingly outmoded
• Large percentage of our scholarly resources not represented
• A great desire to break down some our self-imposed silos
The process
• Contract– Preliminary presentations
summer of 2006– RFP sent with responses
due December 2006– 2nd set of presentations
early 2007– Negotiations April-June
2007– Software up and running
Sept. 2007– Beta Dec. 2007, live
January 2008
• Local implementation– Established Faceted
Browse Implementation Group (FBIG)
– Worked with MediaLab to customize Aquabrowser
– Finalized initial feature list and design
– Coordinated staff and public rollout*
– Gathered feedback, answered questions, chased problems, etc.
– Maintained bug list and worked with MediaLab on bug fixes
Why Aquabrowser
• Fully met the terms of the RFP at an acceptable cost
• Fully operational system with many implementations
• Very willing to work with us to customize for academic market
Initial functionality list
• Incorporate data from many diverse sources• Offer advanced search capabilities• Use full unicode character set for display and
searching• Offer end-user customization – mylist features,
etc.• Blend information form our various silos• Offer access to external resources, either via
inport of data or by on-the-fly looked• Offer access to enriched content
Initial data sources
• The catalog• Detailed descriptions from Metalib
database• E-holdings from SFX• Archival finding aids and other data• Library website• Syndetics content• At least one external resource
The result
• http://lens.lib.uchicago.edu
• 5,365,000 MARC bibliographic records
• 58,000 e-serial holdings records
• 4,800 internal web page links
• 583 archival finding aids
• Links to 56,000 ODNB articles
• Much more to come
Publicity
• Several staff training sessions
• Ads in campus newspapers
• “tents” in the dining halls
• Banners in the libraries
• Special desk with help available
• Notepads
Reactions• The Good:
– "I think Lens is *really* great, and is a fantastic step forward in information retrieval. I love it so much...". (UC graduate/professional student)
– "It's awesome. way better. keep it, por favor." (UC undergraduate) – "Excellent!!! Much Much Much Better than the old system! This is how
searching for text should be! (just like google that is) Thanks for the major upgrade!" (UC graduate/professional student)
– "The search "just worked" -- this is exactly how search should be--type in relevant terms (in my case I had the title and author) and precisely what you want is at the top of the result list. The interface is clean and much easier to read than the old one and unlike the old catalog one need not go through the "which Charles Taylor did you mean" page."
– "My love for LENS exceeds the English language's expressive capacity." (UC student--we think)
Reactions
• The bad:– "You can't search for a call number with "Lens" - a
major downside after using this frequently with the other catalog - also makes it difficult to browse by call number." (UC graduate/professional student)
– "The American Anthropological Association had an investigation of publication of some sort in the mid 1950s. Lens has no capability to deal with with this sort of search, which, indeed, even baffles me after trying all the usual games in the catalog. Note that the catalog advanced search structure helps me far more than lens does, because at least it locates for me the most obvious place to look, in the bulletin or what ever it is (I don't remember) of the AAA." (UC faculty)
Coming attractions
• Successor group MyDiscoveries Implemenation Group (MDIG) formed– More local resources– More licensed content– Integrate metasearch– Patron empowerment
• Bookbag• Social tagging
– FRBR-like clustering of results
