NCSU Libraries Focus Online
Volume 26 number 3 - Spring 2006
NCSU Libraries Unveils Revolutionary New Catalog
By Kristin Antelman, Digital Library
Twenty-five years ago, the NCSU Libraries
became one of the first academic libraries to take a giant leap
into the digital future by converting its card catalog into an
online catalog. The online catalog has served users well during
the intervening years, allowing them to search across the library's
collection in ways that were impossible with the card catalog.
Although the online catalog became available over the Web a decade
ago, its search capabilities had never fundamentally changed--until
now.
This January, the NCSU Libraries announced the
deployment of a revolutionary new online catalog, the first of
its kind in an academic library. The new catalog is powered by
search software created by Endeca Technologies to run top electronic-commerce
Web sites, such as those of Barnes & Noble and Home Depot.
The new catalog's approach to information retrieval, "guided navigation," mimics
the human discovery process by integrating the two most common
means of finding information online--searching and browsing. This
integration allows users to adapt and hone their searches based
on their own determination of relevancy.
The implementation team was led by Andrew
K. Pace, head of the NCSU Libraries' Information Technology
Department. Emily Lynema, an NCSU Libraries
Fellow in Information Technology and in Research and Information
Services (RIS), was technical lead on the project. Other members
of the team were Cindy Levine,
RIS; Erik Moore, Information Technology; Charley
Pennell, Metadata and Cataloging; Shirley
Rodgers, Information Technology; and Tito Sierra,
Digital Library Initiatives. The team proved motivated and productive--only
a short six months elapsed between the library's acquiring the
software and the catalog becoming available to library users.
Vice Provost and Director of Libraries Susan K.
Nutter says,
"With this groundbreaking approach, the NCSU
Libraries is responding to Web searchers who expect to retrieve
results in order of relevance. The new system--the first of its
kind in a library--empowers users to locate quickly the items they're
looking for or to explore the multifaceted research collection
in depth, exploiting both the software's cutting-edge capabilities
and the library's many decades of investment in detailed cataloging
and classification."
Users will encounter many exciting new features
when searching in the catalog. The most visible change is that
users have the opportunity to limit results by subject, format,
library, immediate availability, and other relevant aspects. Ranked
in order of relevancy by default, results can also be sorted by
date, author, title, call number, or popularity. The catalog offers
the Google-like features of automatic spell correction and "Did
you mean?" recommendations. "Breadcrumbs" at the
top of the screen list the refinements selected and allow the user
to remove them at any time in the search session.
By selecting the browse tab from the catalog homepage,
users can browse the collection by Library of Congress classification
without issuing a search at all. Also available on the browse tab
is a list of titles added within the last week (a "new books" list).
By using the refinement options presented with this list, the catalog
user can quickly limit the results to browse the new books in his
or her field of interest.
Library staff members are conducting usability
studies in the library's Usability Research Laboratory to evaluate
the effectiveness of the new catalog in meeting NCSU student and
faculty information needs. Over time, circulation statistics will
be analyzed to determine whether the more user-friendly catalog
is increasing overall use of the collection, as well as its impact
on the circulation of those parts of the collection that are now
more discoverable. It is anticipated that the results of these
studies, as well as a report on the technical and policy issues
associated with the catalog’s implementation, will be published
this fall in the journal Information Technology and Libraries.
The catalog has generated considerable "buzz" in
the library profession and beyond. Echoing attendees of the January
meeting of the American Library Association, Will Owen, head of
Systems at UNC-Chapel Hill, said, "this is absolutely the
coolest thing I've seen all century." The project has been "blogged" on
several dozen Web sites and was a featured story in Library
Journal Online. Implementation team members have been invited
to speak on the project at several leading academic libraries and
national meetings. Erin Stalberg, head of Cataloging Services at
the University of Virginia Library, summed up the library community's
reaction in saying, "You have injected an energy into the
ILS world that has been lacking for a very long time."
Feedback on the new catalog from the NC State community
has been similarly positive. Faculty and student members of the
University Library Committee as well as attendees of the spring
orientation for new faculty, responded with great interest, saying
that it was clear that the new catalog interface would make finding
library resources in their areas of research much easier. Adam
Meade, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, commented, “The
new library catalog search features are a big improvement over
the old system. Not only is the search extremely fast, but seemingly
it’s much more intelligent as well. Additionally, the easy-to-access
facet refinements make narrowing the search quick and painless.”
Visit the new catalog by selecting "Catalog" on
the Libraries’ homepage or going directly to http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/catalog/.
Click on "Guided Navigation by Endeca" to learn more
about the project and to send feedback to the implementation team.
"The NCSU Libraries have announced the first
library deployment of Endeca ProFind with Guided Navigation. I
expect many libraries will follow suit. It must be an exciting
time to be at NCSU. Not only do they have the coolest catalog.
They also get to zip around on a Segway Human Transporter. No wonder
everyone wants to be a librarian these days."
--Peter Morville, coauthor of Information Architecture
for the World Wide Web |
