Every year, the Spanish speaking world descends on Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico for the FIL - Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara. For the past 9 years, the American Library Association has worked with the FIL to provide scholarships to US librarians to attend. This year, I was one of the lucky ones.
My dean prompted my colleagues and I to apply this summer. Being as how, I enjoy traveling and learning new things about library world, I decided to apply. Much to my surprise, I was selected to attend. The scholarship included registration for the FIL, 3 to 6 nights in a hotel (depending on whether you were willing to have a roommate), 3 breakfast coupons, and $100 towards airfare.
As the dates approached, the listserv setup for participants began to spring to life. Librarians from all over introduced themselves and questions regarding vendors and what to expect began to fly. Personally, I learned of a handful of people that were going to be on the same flight as I and even someone that was willing to assist with my virtually non-existent Spanish skills.
After various travel woes, I arrived in Guadalajara the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I ended up with a wonderful roommate who not only had been to the FIL before and could give me tips and hints, but also knew how to make a telephone call state side. She made me feel at home and gave me a preliminary scouting report.
Most of the people that I met at the FIL were selectors and purchasers of Spanish language materials for their libraries. The areas of the US I found represented were Virginia, all of California, Arizona, Maryland, Illinois, Texas and then me from Arkansas. Although I am sure there were more, I was amazed by the thought of the increasing need for Spanish materials throughout the country.
My 1st day at the fair (Sunday) was OVERWHELMING. I was in a foreign country and completely out my normal library element. As I ended up explaining several times over the course of 5 days, I am a systems librarian. I neither knew Spanish nor had any collection development duties. My charge was to be a scout and to determine how and with whom to establish vendor relationships. Boy, did I have a lot to learn.
My first impressions of the fair were awe and dismay. I was struck by how many people were interested in attending a BOOK FAIR. Here in the US, I can’t imagine anything short of a Rock Concert attracting this many people. None of the vendors were interested in speaking with me. I began to wonder why I had come all this distance for something that wasn’t even really my job. Thankfully, there was an orientation session on Sunday evening which put things in perspective.
I learned several things in that session. First, Monday – Wednesday 8-5p is reserved for professionals. All other times the general public is permitted entrance. So that morning, I had been amongst the masses and seen firsthand that the Spanish speaking countries tend to be highly literate or at least have a literary awareness that is unheard of in Arkansas, if not the whole US. Second, regulars had spent the weekend scoping out the fair to give us hints, tips, tidbits, and finds at various booths. I took notes as one gentleman rattled off all of the big name players in field and explained that most of their items would be available from book jobbers. Thus, it was advisable to go by their booths and make laundry lists of those titles we were interested in. Third, another woman gave advice as to how to approach the fair in general. She encouraged us to focus our search on the population we were purchasing for, to work with a jobber, to use the Salon del Libros for suggested titles since they were picked by collection specialists by public, school, and academic librarians, and finally, to pace ourselves and stave off overwhelm in any possible fashion. Finally, the session broke into library types. I attended the academic session and was amazed. The two speakers had scouted the fair for specific kinds from small publishing houses and authors. They gave a list of booths to not miss, a breakdown of who accepted credit and who didn’t, specific titles that were key in the various disciplines, and again, be focused in your search. After this session, I felt much more grounded and was able to proceed with my scouting tasks the remainder of the week.
Many of my fellow librarians were of assistance throughout the week. The experience and interaction with colleagues actively involved in this area gave me many new concepts to be understood when dealing with collection development. They included dialectal differences in Spanish, why come to the fair at all (very limited book runs, amongst other things), how selective book jobbers can be about their vendors, what questions to ask a vendor (fill rate, shipping, publishing houses worked with, timeline for order completion, and more), and a fraction of the political/social dance that is done in maintaining vendor relations.
In addition to the intensity of the work at the fair, ALA strove to ensure that we took time to socialize and network. Two major events were held, the Grand Gala on Sunday night and the reception hosted by the US Consulate on Monday night. Both events allowed for decompression and exchange of those rare finds found during the course of the day. I am truly grateful that ALA-FIL took as much time as they did to intentionally orient and organize us. I feel that my perspective on the world of librarianship has grown tenfold through this experience. I know in college, they always wanted to graduate “well-rounded” individuals. I believe that this experience has gone one more step towards making me a “well-rounded” librarian. So, although I am merely a systems librarian, I hope that ALA-FIL allows my attendance in the future and continues this program so that I may encourage others to participate.
December 07, 2006
November 02, 2006
Weeding
We have moved forward with our weeding/deselection project. This project is being done working with the departments. We are using WorldCat Collection Analysis to identify titles held in the areas we are weeding. While I think this is a good tool for collection analysis (with lots of patience as it's still not intuitive), I'm not sure if it's good for weeding. I'm not sure it's bad, either.
You can only search by broad subject area, i.e. Sociology. From the matches you can drill down even further. It is easier than building a query in Millenium (III); the problem is there are subjects that may actually fall under a different program area, which means that each "sub" subject area must be exported separately. For example, I limited my query to Sociology and the 1960's (1960-1969). Not all areas were appropriate for my project. I wound up with 10 different spreadsheets since you can only either export at the top level or at each individual level. And, speaking of export, you can only export from WorldCat itself after viewing the list and it only does it in batches of 500. I find this a bit inconvenient. You also can't identify which fields you want to export.
My only other option at this point is to identify the call number areas and build the query in Millenium and then export from Millenium. However, query building in Millenium can be tedious itself and it does have some quirks. Plus, I believe the output in Excel from WorldCat Coll Analysis is cleaner. And, limiting by publication date is easier in WorldCat Coll Analysis.
I had a chance to chat with Bowker about their upcoming product while at the Charleston Conference. I think it will be better at identifying missing recommended titles, but I'm not sure it would be anymore useful for weeding.
Bottom line, this is my first major weeding project. I've had to review the titles pulled from our first round because they overlapped with other departments or we felt they should remain in the collection. I'm limiting areas to consider more, but winding up with a LOT of spreadsheets in the process. WorldCat Coll Analysis makes running the report easier, but it doesn't take all of the work out of the whole project. However, there probably isn't any tool that would do that. After about a month of this, I've decided that WorldCat Coll Analysis provides a good starting point for the weeding projects.
technorati tags: collection analysis weeding deselection
You can only search by broad subject area, i.e. Sociology. From the matches you can drill down even further. It is easier than building a query in Millenium (III); the problem is there are subjects that may actually fall under a different program area, which means that each "sub" subject area must be exported separately. For example, I limited my query to Sociology and the 1960's (1960-1969). Not all areas were appropriate for my project. I wound up with 10 different spreadsheets since you can only either export at the top level or at each individual level. And, speaking of export, you can only export from WorldCat itself after viewing the list and it only does it in batches of 500. I find this a bit inconvenient. You also can't identify which fields you want to export.
My only other option at this point is to identify the call number areas and build the query in Millenium and then export from Millenium. However, query building in Millenium can be tedious itself and it does have some quirks. Plus, I believe the output in Excel from WorldCat Coll Analysis is cleaner. And, limiting by publication date is easier in WorldCat Coll Analysis.
I had a chance to chat with Bowker about their upcoming product while at the Charleston Conference. I think it will be better at identifying missing recommended titles, but I'm not sure it would be anymore useful for weeding.
Bottom line, this is my first major weeding project. I've had to review the titles pulled from our first round because they overlapped with other departments or we felt they should remain in the collection. I'm limiting areas to consider more, but winding up with a LOT of spreadsheets in the process. WorldCat Coll Analysis makes running the report easier, but it doesn't take all of the work out of the whole project. However, there probably isn't any tool that would do that. After about a month of this, I've decided that WorldCat Coll Analysis provides a good starting point for the weeding projects.
technorati tags: collection analysis weeding deselection
August 30, 2006
Academic Library Makeover - Part 1
In the summer of 2006, the Ottenheimer Library at UALR welcomed a new dean to their midst. Prior to her arrival, the head of the library was a Director position and had a person with a long-standing connection to the university. This new leader brought a world of fresh thought and direction to an already thriving community.
Strategic plans across campus were due July 1st and new deans were provided extended deadlines until the end of the year. Within in the first month, the dean organized a retreat of all library employees, leaving only a skeleton crew behind. An outside facilitator was retained to lead the group through a quick basic understanding of the strategic planning process. An agenda of Mission, Vision, and Strategic Directions were fare for the day.
Participation from all areas of the library allowed for lively inquiry into the direction of the library. Several strategic directions were enumerated within the allotted time period, providing the springboard for the "real work" about to begin.
Upon returning to daily routines, the Dean called for full staff participation on their choice of several "task groups" - Mission/Vision, Working with other libraries, Staff Development and Training, Building Redesign, Interdepartmental Communications, Fund raising, Community Outreach, Marketing, Assessment, Change Management, Collection Building, Offsite Storage, and Technology Advances in Education. The first group that was called to action was the Mission/Vision group.
Strategic plans across campus were due July 1st and new deans were provided extended deadlines until the end of the year. Within in the first month, the dean organized a retreat of all library employees, leaving only a skeleton crew behind. An outside facilitator was retained to lead the group through a quick basic understanding of the strategic planning process. An agenda of Mission, Vision, and Strategic Directions were fare for the day.
Participation from all areas of the library allowed for lively inquiry into the direction of the library. Several strategic directions were enumerated within the allotted time period, providing the springboard for the "real work" about to begin.
Upon returning to daily routines, the Dean called for full staff participation on their choice of several "task groups" - Mission/Vision, Working with other libraries, Staff Development and Training, Building Redesign, Interdepartmental Communications, Fund raising, Community Outreach, Marketing, Assessment, Change Management, Collection Building, Offsite Storage, and Technology Advances in Education. The first group that was called to action was the Mission/Vision group.
August 25, 2006
Chat .... more than a reference tool
I've been seeing a lot more on chat reference, particularly jobs allowing some librarians to work from home providing chat reference. However, I wonder if any libraries are using it as a "team" tool - for internal communications among staff.
My first experience with chat was in the late 1990's. I was on a customer service team that was spread across two countries and four time zones. We were trying to find a way to come together as a team and fell into using Yahoo! Messenger. It turned out to be great. We all had our little areas of expertise and the chat allowed us to pop off quick questions to the teammate in the know with very little down time. Let's face it, the phone is great, but there is always a little personal chit chat thrown in which takes up time. Using chat became the norm for our group. It was also used by other departments in the company. About a year or so after we began using chat, Lotus Notes rolled out a company chat program called SameTime. I admit I was happy to see this. The real downside to using Yahoo! Messenger at work was that it mingled my work and my personal contacts. I didn't always want co-workers to see me online on the weekends as I considered that "my" time.
Since leaving that job and moving on to librarianship, I still chat. A lot. And yes, I sometimes have it up at work, but once again, it's not just my personal contacts. It's also my librarian contacts and one person on my team here. It still has the same uses in this job as it did the previous job. Quick answers to quick questions. If I'm at the reference desk, my teammate knows this through my status and comes to the reference desk if she needs to speak with me (an added feature since I'm the second floor and she's not). But, it's not standard in the library. The only other librarian who used chat has since moved to another position half way across the country... but I can still bounce questions off of her or even ask "do you remember why we did it this way?"
School just started here and I envision this great little way of knowing who is available in case one gets swamped at the reference desk... check out the chat tool and see who is online. A quick "help!" and they'd be there. However, I've also seen chat become a monitoring tool, which took absolutely all the collaboration and creativity out of it. I definitely don't see that as a use of it, but have decided that most people need to embrace chat, at least on a personal level, on their own. When the organization is spread across two countries and four times zones, then they can mandate it's use. And, with good reason.
I wonder though, if any libraries do have groups of people on chat. There are times I know it would beat sending multiple e-mails back and forth. I will add though, that if the quick question mentioned above becomes complicated, we do pick up the phone and call. After all, we know the other person is in their office. :)
technorati tags: chat chat collaboration
My first experience with chat was in the late 1990's. I was on a customer service team that was spread across two countries and four time zones. We were trying to find a way to come together as a team and fell into using Yahoo! Messenger. It turned out to be great. We all had our little areas of expertise and the chat allowed us to pop off quick questions to the teammate in the know with very little down time. Let's face it, the phone is great, but there is always a little personal chit chat thrown in which takes up time. Using chat became the norm for our group. It was also used by other departments in the company. About a year or so after we began using chat, Lotus Notes rolled out a company chat program called SameTime. I admit I was happy to see this. The real downside to using Yahoo! Messenger at work was that it mingled my work and my personal contacts. I didn't always want co-workers to see me online on the weekends as I considered that "my" time.
Since leaving that job and moving on to librarianship, I still chat. A lot. And yes, I sometimes have it up at work, but once again, it's not just my personal contacts. It's also my librarian contacts and one person on my team here. It still has the same uses in this job as it did the previous job. Quick answers to quick questions. If I'm at the reference desk, my teammate knows this through my status and comes to the reference desk if she needs to speak with me (an added feature since I'm the second floor and she's not). But, it's not standard in the library. The only other librarian who used chat has since moved to another position half way across the country... but I can still bounce questions off of her or even ask "do you remember why we did it this way?"
School just started here and I envision this great little way of knowing who is available in case one gets swamped at the reference desk... check out the chat tool and see who is online. A quick "help!" and they'd be there. However, I've also seen chat become a monitoring tool, which took absolutely all the collaboration and creativity out of it. I definitely don't see that as a use of it, but have decided that most people need to embrace chat, at least on a personal level, on their own. When the organization is spread across two countries and four times zones, then they can mandate it's use. And, with good reason.
I wonder though, if any libraries do have groups of people on chat. There are times I know it would beat sending multiple e-mails back and forth. I will add though, that if the quick question mentioned above becomes complicated, we do pick up the phone and call. After all, we know the other person is in their office. :)
technorati tags: chat chat collaboration
August 03, 2006
Figuring out what you need
I've blogged previously (albeit breifly) about WorldCat Collection Analysis (WCA). When it came out a year ago, I was excited. I needed something to help weed our collection and appreciated the fact that WCA would sort holdings by publication date. For many subject areas this isn't really an issue, but for those that out date fast, it is. It's also proved helpful when running reports for departments seeking accreditation for new or existing programs.
WCA recently added the ability to compare your holdings to title lists. I was very pleased to see that and excited to give it a go. Well, it does tell me what titles I have that are on the title lists. I believe it also tells me what I don't have. Problem is, I'm having a hard time interpreting the data as WCA is presenting it. This just makes me more anxious to get a peek at Bowker's Book Analysis System for Academic Libraries.
The more I use, the more I realize that WCA does not present results in a intuitive fashion. They do provide documentation, but the examples are of comparisions between peer institutions and not those that are comparisons of title lists. They say it works the same. Then I view the results and, sadly, I'm not sure what I'm looking at.
In talking with another Collection Development Librarian, we discussed it a bit and why some other institutions have chosen not to go with WorldCat Collection Analysis. They weren't sure that the peer comparison was all that beneficial to them, which is a big piece of WCA. I tend to agree. So, now I start to wonder if WCA is redundent. I've been very successful at pulling holdings for my reports from my ILS system. It's a bit more tedious, but I also have the added ability to determine what fields I include in the exported Excel report. It's all standard with WCA.
I'd really like to use the same system to determine what I weed and what recommended titles I'm lacking. The goal is to beef up areas that aren't quite up to par. I'm still not sure WCA won't do this; I'm going to keep plugging away and see what I can come up with.
technorati tags: collection development, book analysis, collection analysis
WCA recently added the ability to compare your holdings to title lists. I was very pleased to see that and excited to give it a go. Well, it does tell me what titles I have that are on the title lists. I believe it also tells me what I don't have. Problem is, I'm having a hard time interpreting the data as WCA is presenting it. This just makes me more anxious to get a peek at Bowker's Book Analysis System for Academic Libraries.
The more I use, the more I realize that WCA does not present results in a intuitive fashion. They do provide documentation, but the examples are of comparisions between peer institutions and not those that are comparisons of title lists. They say it works the same. Then I view the results and, sadly, I'm not sure what I'm looking at.
In talking with another Collection Development Librarian, we discussed it a bit and why some other institutions have chosen not to go with WorldCat Collection Analysis. They weren't sure that the peer comparison was all that beneficial to them, which is a big piece of WCA. I tend to agree. So, now I start to wonder if WCA is redundent. I've been very successful at pulling holdings for my reports from my ILS system. It's a bit more tedious, but I also have the added ability to determine what fields I include in the exported Excel report. It's all standard with WCA.
I'd really like to use the same system to determine what I weed and what recommended titles I'm lacking. The goal is to beef up areas that aren't quite up to par. I'm still not sure WCA won't do this; I'm going to keep plugging away and see what I can come up with.
technorati tags: collection development, book analysis, collection analysis
July 20, 2006
Electronic Resources and Libraries Conference
This past March Alexis and I were selected to present at ER&L on our federated searching research. It was an honor to be a part of this inagural conference. I was inspired by the quality of presentations and discourse by not only the presenters but the attendees. This was the first time I had been involved with presenting that involved an online element. Participants were given access to Moodle to post questions and review powerp0ints as well as the actual presentation. I thought I would share this permanent link just released by Georgia Tech's Institutional Repository. It allows you to relive that presentation. I hope that our infomration on federated searching sparks more interest and allows the library field to start driving this discussion instead of letting the vendors - mostly IT - drive it.
http://hdl.handle.net/1853/10170
July 18, 2006
Evolution of a Librarian
I want to thank Alexis, for bringing me kicking and screaming into the land of blogs. Most people that I know are perplexed by that statement because I am a Systems Librarian, IT professional, software trainer, and currently a department head for both IT and Instructional Media services at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. But it is true that I have been reluctant to enter the world of blogging, online journals, or the social communities of the 21st century. Perhaps a little more perspective from whence I come...
I started in the world of Bulletin Board Systems (BBSes) back in the mid-80's. I was on an interactive CHAT system back in 1986. I had my 1st internet account in 1988. I had my first Website (not web page but web SITE) in 1993 when Mosaic was just getting started. I presented the 1st hands-on workshop at Internet World and Computers in Libraries on "How to Create Your Own Homepage" back in 1994, 1995 respectively. Since then, I've been in and out of both the Library Systems world and the software training world. I love using and teaching the technology to further the lives of others.
I started in the world of Bulletin Board Systems (BBSes) back in the mid-80's. I was on an interactive CHAT system back in 1986. I had my 1st internet account in 1988. I had my first Website (not web page but web SITE) in 1993 when Mosaic was just getting started. I presented the 1st hands-on workshop at Internet World and Computers in Libraries on "How to Create Your Own Homepage" back in 1994, 1995 respectively. Since then, I've been in and out of both the Library Systems world and the software training world. I love using and teaching the technology to further the lives of others.
July 17, 2006
Book Analysis Tools
I do collection development, so I'm always interested in tools that will help me evaluate what I have or don't have. One of the new tools soon to be available to academic libraries is Bowker's Book Analysis System. You must subscribe to the Books in Print database to use this tool. It will compare your library's holdings to ACRL's Resources for College Libraries (which is the update to Books for College Libraries and which will also be available in print and database formats). I've been able to look at the public library version and like what I've seen so far. Not only does it give you results by subject, but you can also view them by call number. You also have many options for limiters, such as award winners, or you can just run the analysis without limiters and take it by sujbect area. While it's Dewey for the public library product, Library of Congress call numbers will be available for the academic product.
I'm comparing this a bit to OCLC's WorldCat Collection Analysis system, which my library subscribes to, and which at times isn't as intuitive as the Bowker product appears to be (remember, I haven't seen the academic version yet). You must have holdings in WorldCat and subscribe to WorldCat. WorldCat Collection Analysis now runs comparisons against Choice Magazine's Outstanding Academic Titles, titles reviewed in Booklist , and Books for College Libraries (1988 ed.). Not sure if they'll upgrade this to the upcoming Resource for College Libraries or not.
WorldCat Collection Analysis also allows you to set up comparison groups, which could be particularly useful when doing accreditation reports for departments. I'm not sure about the Bowker product, but the unfortunate thing about WorldCat Collection Analysis is that a lot of the set up, i.e. which title list to compare to, which schools or institutions to compare to, is all done in the Administration module for WordCat as a whole. Advanced search does allow quite a bit of latitude for limiting the search, but you can't view the results by call number, just by subject heading.
Administration is also a bit awkward. It seems (as far as I can tell), that you can't get to the set-up from the module, which has proved frustrating to me. Maybe not to others. I've finally signed up for their e-mail, but I was a bit puzzled that as the point of contact for our purchase of the WorldCat Collection Analysis, I wasn't automatically put on some list to get product updates. I've found it frustrating to keep up with what they are doing; apparently enhancements are being done on a monthly basis, but unless you get the e-mail or make a habit of going into the admin module or visiting the website, you'll never know. I know it's a powerful tool - I've seen others show it. But, keeping up with it has been hard and it many ways, it's not intuitive. Still, I'm forging ahead because I think this will be an invaluable tool in analyzing my collection.
technorati tags: collection development book analysis
I'm comparing this a bit to OCLC's WorldCat Collection Analysis system, which my library subscribes to, and which at times isn't as intuitive as the Bowker product appears to be (remember, I haven't seen the academic version yet). You must have holdings in WorldCat and subscribe to WorldCat. WorldCat Collection Analysis now runs comparisons against Choice Magazine's Outstanding Academic Titles, titles reviewed in Booklist , and Books for College Libraries (1988 ed.). Not sure if they'll upgrade this to the upcoming Resource for College Libraries or not.
WorldCat Collection Analysis also allows you to set up comparison groups, which could be particularly useful when doing accreditation reports for departments. I'm not sure about the Bowker product, but the unfortunate thing about WorldCat Collection Analysis is that a lot of the set up, i.e. which title list to compare to, which schools or institutions to compare to, is all done in the Administration module for WordCat as a whole. Advanced search does allow quite a bit of latitude for limiting the search, but you can't view the results by call number, just by subject heading.
Administration is also a bit awkward. It seems (as far as I can tell), that you can't get to the set-up from the module, which has proved frustrating to me. Maybe not to others. I've finally signed up for their e-mail, but I was a bit puzzled that as the point of contact for our purchase of the WorldCat Collection Analysis, I wasn't automatically put on some list to get product updates. I've found it frustrating to keep up with what they are doing; apparently enhancements are being done on a monthly basis, but unless you get the e-mail or make a habit of going into the admin module or visiting the website, you'll never know. I know it's a powerful tool - I've seen others show it. But, keeping up with it has been hard and it many ways, it's not intuitive. Still, I'm forging ahead because I think this will be an invaluable tool in analyzing my collection.
technorati tags: collection development book analysis
July 08, 2006
Up and running
Last fall a fellow librarian and I were asked to do a session at the Arkansas Library Association on federated searching. Just barely knowing what it was at the time, we hesitated. After some thought, we decided it would be a good way to learn about federated searching and agreed to do the session. In the beginning, the thought was "this is not good" and "it's too limited" and that was basically how we approached it.
We ended up having a ball doing the research and even got to test a couple of the available products. We were "converted." We definitely see a use (need) for this product, especially for undergraduate students (we're both academic librarians). Since then, every time we hear about a new federated search product or updates to an existing one, we're right there checking it out.
Which, in a round about way, brings us to the ALA conference. This year was my first time to attend ALA. Louisiana is my home state, so I was happy that my first ALA conference was also supporting New Orleans. I did even manage to throw in some site seeing. The sessions were good as were the Exhibits.
I have yet to see a federated search engine that I didn't think was cool. I've seen and played with CentralSearch by SerialsSolutions, which will incorprate Vivisimo's technology, providing clustered results and with Multi-Search by CSA. At conference I was able to look at several others that were also very cool: I looked at Ebsco's WebFeat Express (pretty nice); at Vubis' VSpaces, which looks to be very cool and will include an OpenURL resolver, and at Innovative Interfaces MetaFind, which will morph into something more when they launch Encore, which looked to also be very cool. I'll be interested to see it when they're ready to go.
Most federated searching products will do the same thing - allow for subject groupings; incorporate web resources, library opacs, subscription databases; and show where the results are coming from (a feature we look for). Where you'll see differences is in appearance (how the interface looks); administration (who does it - you or the vendor); pricing (most do it by the number of connectors, where a connector can be a database, a search engine, a library, etc.), and fields search. When federated search engines first emerged, what fields they searched were limited. Now, we're seeing where abstracts and subject fields can be searched in addition to author, title, keyword. In short, what can be searched is improving by leaps and bounds.
We're still looking and will post what we find.
technorati tags: federated search
We ended up having a ball doing the research and even got to test a couple of the available products. We were "converted." We definitely see a use (need) for this product, especially for undergraduate students (we're both academic librarians). Since then, every time we hear about a new federated search product or updates to an existing one, we're right there checking it out.
Which, in a round about way, brings us to the ALA conference. This year was my first time to attend ALA. Louisiana is my home state, so I was happy that my first ALA conference was also supporting New Orleans. I did even manage to throw in some site seeing. The sessions were good as were the Exhibits.
I have yet to see a federated search engine that I didn't think was cool. I've seen and played with CentralSearch by SerialsSolutions, which will incorprate Vivisimo's technology, providing clustered results and with Multi-Search by CSA. At conference I was able to look at several others that were also very cool: I looked at Ebsco's WebFeat Express (pretty nice); at Vubis' VSpaces, which looks to be very cool and will include an OpenURL resolver, and at Innovative Interfaces MetaFind, which will morph into something more when they launch Encore, which looked to also be very cool. I'll be interested to see it when they're ready to go.
Most federated searching products will do the same thing - allow for subject groupings; incorporate web resources, library opacs, subscription databases; and show where the results are coming from (a feature we look for). Where you'll see differences is in appearance (how the interface looks); administration (who does it - you or the vendor); pricing (most do it by the number of connectors, where a connector can be a database, a search engine, a library, etc.), and fields search. When federated search engines first emerged, what fields they searched were limited. Now, we're seeing where abstracts and subject fields can be searched in addition to author, title, keyword. In short, what can be searched is improving by leaps and bounds.
We're still looking and will post what we find.
technorati tags: federated search
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