The role of search tools in information seeking by users

The role of search tools in information seeking by users
Karen Groves
Metalib product manager

Information vendor representative

Overview
ExLibris
What is metasearching?
Metasearching and the user experience
Discovery to delivery

ExLibris - global information provider, more than just the US.
Products - Aleph, SFX, Metalib, Digitool, Verde, Primo

Customers are mainly universities

How do I find the information I need?
By hitting all of the search systemsseparatelyy. . ..
Metasearch gives a common interface to a broad range of resources

Resources that are searched with many metasearch applications
Library Catalog
Collections Databases EJournals
Archives
subjectt Gateway
Newspapers
Search Engines
Digital repositories
Etc

Use Facets in metasearch, combine metadata and available sources.

Metasearch
What do you need? Building search interface
Configuring connectors to search and retrieve

Use accessprotocolss to do federated search
Non-http
Z39.50
http
xml

Send unstructured protocols via screen scraping or HTML parsing
Basically, advantage is that the interface removes the complexity for theend userr and allows one entry point and one search syntax

Product comes with a set of preconfigured connectors into various sources
Active in standards community

Why does this matter?
People want to find information when they need it, where they are.

Users gravitate to easy to use vehicles
What is FRBR?

Possible to offer everything today
Call the process Find it + Get it
Supporting a Knowledge creation cycle
Discovery -> analysis -> publication -> reuse