NCSU Libraries Focus Online

Volume 27 number 1 - Fall 2006

Endeca Navigator Award 2006

By Kristen Antelman, Digital Library

The NCSU Libraries' Endeca-powered catalog continues to gain accolades from on campus and beyond. In May 2006 the Libraries was selected by Endeca Technologies, Inc., to receive its prestigious Endeca Navigator Award, which is given to select customers to "recognize the most successful solutions built on the Endeca platform . . . showcasing the most cutting edge and strategic applications of Endeca technology." [Quote link may be found at URL http://endeca.com/discover/navigatorawards.html.]

The award, a limited-edition brass replica of an early-twentieth-century sextant, was presented to the library at the 2006 Endeca Users Conference in Boston, Massachusetts. Steve Papa, founder and CEO of Endeca, said "the entire Endeca team is very pleased to play a small role in inspiring the NCSU students to spend more time appreciating the great treasures in the library."

In addition, the Libraries' catalog was selected as one of only fifteen finalists from a pool of more than 130 nominations for the SirsiDynix Building Better Communities Award. The Libraries received a framed certificate at a ceremony held during the American Library Association's annual meeting in New Orleans this past June.

A librarian writing in a popular blog about NC State’s Endeca catalog highlighted the value of actually being able to browse the collection through the online catalog. "I love the idea of browsing the collection in the OPAC. Long have librarians extolled the virtues of the serendipity of shelf browsing. Our catalogs can and should try to replicate this experience online, and allow other sorts of browsing our shelves don’t provide." The quote may be found at URL http://inquiringlibrarian.blogspot.com/2006/01/next-generation-catalogs.html.

The ability to browse helps students to find quickly what they need. At the Libraries' main reference desk, a librarian used the new catalog to guide a student with the following complicated information need: "Do you have any books about the historical context in which Shakespeare wrote?" By starting with a simple keyword search ("Shakespeare"), the librarian showed the student how to use the facets to narrow the result set down to the best books on the topic.

The broader library community is eager for more information on this project. Library staff members have been invited to give numerous talks across the country and are also consulting with other libraries that are interested in following NC State’s lead. This fall an article will appear in the journal Information Technology & Libraries reporting on usability tests that show how much easier the new catalog is to use.

To see how fun searching a library's online catalog can be, visit the NCSU Libraries' catalog at URL http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/catalog.

Student Andrew Hutzel, a senior in Statistics at NC State says, "The new Endeca system is incredible. It would be difficult to exaggerate how much better it is than our old online card catalog (and therefore that of most other universities). I've found myself searching the catalog just for fun, whereas before it was a chore to find what I needed."