MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species Mario Kowalak (University Library, FU Berlin) IGeLU Conference, 8 – 10 Sept. 2013, Freie Universität Berlin

MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species

Mario Kowalak (University Library, FU Berlin)

IGeLU Conference, 8 – 10 Sept. 2013, Freie Universität Berlin

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MetaLib: hidden treasures …

MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference – FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013

Agenda

• Introduction: misunderstanding MetaLib• Product placement & marketing strategies: more than metasearch …!• Things to do (better) with MetaLib:

• Source guide• Personalization• Visibility of collections• Deep linking• IRD export to webpages

• Conclusions & perspectives

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Introduction: misunderstanding MetaLib

When MetaLib (ML) came into the market, it was always associated with (and reduced to) metasearch or federated search.

In the early years of the new millennium federated search was thought to be a kind of "killer application".

[But - as we know now - it wasn't ... ;-)]

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When librarians recognized that metasearch was obviously overestimated and additionally took into account the performance problems of federated search, many were disappointed and turned away ...



Federated Search


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Faced with "next generation" discovery tools, many librarians think that metasearch is outdated.

This seems to be another false estimation because at least at a medium-term federated or metasearch is necessary as a standard retrieval tool for many sources (for e.g. bibliographic databases). It still is extremely helpful to many customers and will complement our major discovery solutions.

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Product placement & marketing strategies: more than metasearch …!

Even the Ex Libris product marketing is "poor" in that case, focussing only on metasearch ...

"MetaLib provides users with a coherent and friendly environment for metasearching, and enables them to view retrieved results in a manageable, unified format."

(see http://www.exlibrisgroup.com/category/UsingMetaLib)

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Archive?

OPAC for e-resources?

„Only“metasearch tool?

Virtual reading room!;-)

How to use MetaLib?

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Integration ofe-resources

Resource discovery(„Find databases“)

MetasearchPersonalization

Integrated link resolver

Creative „desktop“ / work room searching in and for relevant

electronic resources

Interactive and powerful tool to work with relevant electronic

sources

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Things to do (better) with MetaLib: source guide

With ML we rigorously cut our lists of hyperlinks and integrated the most valuable free sources into ML, the place where all relevant e-resources (databases, bibliographies, reference works, collections ...) should be concentrated.

When libraries discovered the WWW, many of them began to build more or less ambitious web directories (HTML-lists of hyperlinks).

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No more confusing and endless lists with hyperlinks ...

"Find databases" = modern source guide for relevant licensed and free e-resources

• easy & intuitive• dynamic• sophisticated field based search• boolean operators• sources with rich descriptions (DDC, type, period) & annotations• many of the sources are ready for metasearch by CKB


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Right now compared with ML, "find database" functionality in Primo is

less powerful!


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Presenting latest or new databases and trials immediately to our customers ...

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Things to do (better) with MetaLib: personalization

Having your own interactive reading room for e-resources!

The personalization features concerning e-resources are more powerful in ML than in Primo as of now:

• collecting any source as your favourite (not just metasearch databases)

• have as many personal search sets as you like (not just 1)• have your own favourite e-journals at your fingertips

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Things to do (better) with MetaLib: visibility of collections

We aim to have records of each single electronic monograph ("e-book") in our catalog / discovery tools. But what about the collections, publisher and aggregator platforms themselves?

Searching in a complete e-book collection on a full text basis is an interesting and fascinating retrieval option for customers. With ML we catalog and present each publisher / aggregator platform, if at least 15 titles are bought or licensed there ( export to Primo).

No other cataloging tool gives that kind of access to platforms and collections! (Many platforms are ready for federated search.)

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Things to do (better) with MetaLib: visibility of collections

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Things to do (better) with MetaLib: deep linking

Deep linking is a great opportunity to give our customers direct access to special groups of or single ML-sources. Addresses can be based on nearly all kinds of requests from the "find database" section (DDC, title words etc.). The URL should be stable and dynamically reflect all updates concerning new resources.

Application example:A faculty library or a faculty wants to present some relevant e-resources on their homepage, but does not want to care for updating the related hyperlink list.

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Things to do (better) with MetaLib: deep linking

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Things to do (better) with MetaLib: IRD export to webpages

Problem:How to make ML-sources visible to customers, who don't use our classical discovery tools (deep web or invisible web problem)?

Solution:To make our ML-sources more visible, we create script based HTML-pages out of ML-IRDs, to be indexed by Google and other search engines. If our customers search Google for a databases name e.g. and combine this with 'FU Berlin', they get the corresponding landing page to directly access the source.

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Metasearch will continue to play an important role for retrieval and discovery for the next years.

But MetaLib can be much more than metasearch ...

MetaLib is a great interactive tool and a significant component for ERM context (cataloging, guiding, presenting and searching e-resources), but in the end librarians and library users are not interested in products, but in functionalities!

Conclusions & perspectives

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The integration / interoperability between ML and Primo (front end) is on a good way. But Primo should be (at least) on the same functional level like ML ("find databases", personalization etc.).

The integration of ML with Aleph / Verde or next generation back end Alma seems to be poor and a serious problem (no metadata exchange?); from today’s view ML looks like an isolated "island" or a library within a library.


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Rethink MetaLib! (Will it survive as a stand-alone product?)

Rethink the functionalities, the potential, the workflows and the different ways ML is set up in libraries!

Provide interfaces & connections ( Alma …)!

Save, improve and move forward ML functionalities!

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Thank you!

Questions, ideas …?

[email protected]



Documents

MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species Mario Kowalak (University Library, FU Berlin) IGeLU Conference, 8 – 10 Sept. 2013, Freie Universität Berlin