Gale's "Power Search" and WebFeat

Once again, I am posting here a follow-up on integrated federated searching, as posted on our Black Gold Blog.

I wrote in early July about the federated search service, WebFeat. I'd like to mention Gale's search options as well. Gale has a free widget that can be added to a website to search all the Gale Databases to which a library subscribes. For an additional fee Gale will include the library's catalog and other subscription databases. I spoke with a representative from Gale/Cengage Learning this week and was referred to several websites to view the search function in place. For example, one can visit Redwood City Public Library and look at the lower left for the "PowerSearch" box. Another is San Leandro Public Library where "PowerSearch" is placed on the right side of the page.

I wanted to learn more about the differences between WebFeat and Gale's "PowerSearch," in particular, pricing and features. I wrote to the Gale representative who supplied me with the following summary:

The price is not based on the number of branches a library has but the population served and the number of non-Gale electronic resources you choose to include. It is slightly higher than the $1,200 I estimated as I had forgotten that your population served is over 200,000.
So, for San Luis Obispo City County Library, the cost would be:
$2,995 per year to include 1 -10 resources, including your catalog
$5,995 per year to include 11-25 resources, including your catalog
By resources, I mean individual sources. For instance, each of the newspapers you get from NewsBank is considered one resource. So the number of resources is not at the vendor level (ie. NewsBank) but at the individual source level that you choose to include (ie. Ventura County Star, San Luis Obispo Tribune, etc).

I called the sales director at WebFeat and inquired about their product and was quoted the following pricing: $7,950 annually per library system (jurisdiction) for up to 50 resources. The SMART Usage Tracker for reports of key metrics is an additional $2,000.
The WebFeat "about us" web page states the following:

In February 2008, WebFeat was acquired by ProQuest. As a result of this strategic alignment, the strengths of WebFeat’s and Serials Solutions’ federated search platforms will be combined to create a single, market-leading solution. The new platform will debut in early 2009, providing libraries with more power and efficiency in accessing their data pools.

Whether Black Gold stays with our current automated system or chooses another, a federated search might be something to consider to increase popularity of our catalog and databases, and factor into the cost of automation. I am posting this for general information purposes to support those exploring various options for our consortium.

WebFeat, an Integrated Federated Search for Library Websites

I posted most of the following on our Black Gold Blog in early July, and decided to post it here as well:

The point of this message is to inquire about an integrated, federated search that I have been hearing about on Calix, -- WebFeat. Apparently this search system provides integrated results across OPACs and databases with "one-stop, remote patron authentication." The company also provides a product called Smart Usage Tracker, a slick statistical measurement program that does the following:

SMART logs and reports key metrics, including
* Number of search requests by database
* Number of full record/full text requests by database; and
number of next set requests by database
* In-house verses remote usage; tracked by IP address or library/client type
* Search terms
* Date/time stamp
* Native search response time
* Number of database "turnaways" (users denied access due to native database concurrent user limits
* Key fields from citations selected by users: ISSN, title, author, and database

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One librarian, of Contra Costa County Library reported in his June 6, 2008 Calix message that after implementing WebFeat Express and the WebFeat add-on in AquaBroswer some of the library databases zoomed from an average of 5,000 uses per month to over 200,000 per month. (Contra Costa County Library System serves a population of over 1 million, and includes 20 branches.) This increased figure of usage (40 percent) reveals the impact of a federated search across the database offerings rather than increased patron usasge per se. However, the more comprehensive results may garner more patron interest and confidence. And because usage stats are much higher as a whole, the Smart Usage Tracker becomes an important tool to narrow down the details of use per database. This is my conclusion anyway; and I would be interested in learning what federated searching products Black Gold ATS has already explored and what value such a system and tracking module may have for Black Gold.

Wikis, Pooled Knowledge, and Collaborative Projects

People are joining together to build a new, comprehensive, general knowledge wiki encyclopedia. Most everyone is familiar with Wikipedia. Now there is Citizendium, where the aim is to build a better encyclopedia. For starters, real names are required to join and create Citizendium articles. The agreements and guidelines assure greater accuracy and authority. The community wishes to promote a "gold standard of sensible governance systems," including expert editors who review articles, as well as constables who monitor behavior but who have limited authority. Confidence in the database is further enhanced by "signed articles" from experts and academics, and the inclusion of supplementary reference materials. Spend some time reading their introductory pages and see why librarians might be happier with Citizendium than Wikipedia.

Wikis are popular for another reason -- information is organized by topic rather than date. Blogs resemble an online diary,a stream of thoughts and ideas posted in reverse chronological order. True, blogs can be keyword searched if well tagged . Wikis have an additional collaborative advantage; the body of knowledge can be easily expanded, edited and revised. A nice summary of both advantages and disadvantages of wikis is covered by PLCMC Core Competencies, a public library blog that refers the reader to a wiki defining the "core competencies" training offered by their library. Their core competencies are unique to their library staff goals. Another library organization may choose other core competency requirements and build a similar document in a collaborative effort. Building the wiki together enhances a team approach to the purposes of the project.

I hope to cover more on the topic of wikis in the near future.

Continuing with iGoogle

Instead of manipulating Google Calendar to load our department calendar, I added an image widget and linked it to the url of the calendar, and named it "Ref Staff Calendar ." The image is a reduced photo of the SLO Library I took about a year ago previously posted in entry dated October 14, 2007.

As I continue with my iGoogle experiment I will see if I truly find myself more organized from the time I arrive at work, to tracking the calendar and to-do lists, and accomplishing more.

I will let you know!

Getting Organized with Google; an Experiment

Google wants to be the center of your day, work or play. It wants to organize your life! Google first intrigued me because it is fun to use a search engine with whimsical, colorful website artistry. Then I began to notice that I could move some of my daily work (at least my self-organization) online. Will Google become indispensable? I'm certain that is the company's goal!

For some time I have had an e-mail account with Google. And I began to look at other free conveniences to help me organize my work. First, I set up an iGoogle account and selected some add-ons such as "Google Notebook" and "Google Docs." I am also testing two list widgets (things-to- do lists): "To Do" and "Listy." I also have added "Sticky Notes," "Google Calendar" and "Date and Time" to my page. In addition to pages of add-ons from which to choose, there are a number of themes you can select and change as often as you wish to suit the look and layout you prefer.

How can Google help me get organized? I can open the page when I arrive at work in the morning and look at my to-do lists. I can keep notes in my Google Notebook, and working documents in "Google Docs." Let's say that I think of something when at home that I do not want to forget to add to my work the next day. Rather than write a note to take to work, as in the past, I can log on to iGoogle at home and make comments in the notebook or docs section, or add a line to my to-do list. Currently I restrict my Google accounts to tools that help me with organizing my work and my professional growth. In other words I do not place in-house documents in my Google page. When I attend a conference I can take notes in docs. Likewise, while surfing, I can post notes about useful websites in notebook.

I have not yet added events to Google Calendar. I had already created a reference staff calendar for our department through the service at Calendars.net, and upgraded it last year to CalendarsPlus. Therefore I will either attempt to link the this calendar to iGoogle or use my Google Calendar for a simple date and day reference. [Note: Since moving job locations, this calendar has not been maintained by me.]

Connectedy is Back, But No Easy Back-up Option?

While Connectedy -- our shared bookmarking service -- was gone I began moving things to Netvouz. Netvouz's arrangement of links is less librarian-friendly in my opinion. Connectedy came back online about a 6 weeks ago and we began updating links. However, making a back-up is somewhat of a problem because I have not been able to find an export feature in Connectedy. Importing (uploading) bookmarks is an option, but not exporting. Let's hope we do not lose Connectedy again. The only back-up I can currently think of is to open each category and print every link and keep a paper copy and build again somewhere else, like Netvouz! I will appreciate any ideas others may have about solving this problem. One other problem this service is that the once "public-view" or "shared-view" has disappeared and it requires a login and password for viewing. I have been scouring the site to find how to correct this problem but as yet have not been successful. For the time being, Connectedy is our best option, but I will continue to check other social bookmarking services for something that works better for us.

Losing Our Social Bookmark Service, Connectedy

What a shame to discover the bookmarking service we had organized has apparently been abandoned. The service was called Connectedy and had the advantages of a simple list of links that could be categorized and searched by keyword. While we often find what we need on the Internet through our quick searches, I always felt an additional sense of security with our Connectedy account, knowing that I could locate again a useful online resource I had found before. There were many times that I knew I had come across a great site that held the answer to a patron's question, but I could not remember the name of the site. Checking our links, I could recognize the one I needed and save time retrieving the information.

Now that Connectedy is gone, and it appears to be permanently gone, I have begun to rebuild the links at Nevouz. I am also rebuilding our bookmarks on one of the reference desk computers as a backup that can be re-loaded into Netvouz or another social bookmarking service if necessary.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all. And it is already 5 days old? .. :-) .. Well, I am still sending you best wishes for a great 2008... A leap year... An election year.

I try to set a certain amount of time every week as a learning hour, or a learning session. Today I found something interesting in the October 2007 Library Journal.

In an article about open source "metasearch" Roy Tennant describes the cross-database searching (federated searching) software used at Oregon State University. It gives me an idea of what the future may hold someday for all libraries.

LibraryFind® is software developed by the Oregon State University Libraries, funded in part by a grant from the State Library.

After looking at their own description of what it does, you can even try out their system. It's cool.
I've added the links to our Connectedy list too ... under the category "Library Blogs, Library Literature & What's New."

Here are some comments about LibraryFind, by Roy Tennant:
One of the most significant things you get with LibraryFind is the code itself--because it's open source, you're free to add to it, change it, or simply examine how it works....
Along with the LibraryFind software, you get some preconfigured resource connections to access about 50 specific databases (though there are many others).
... For now, LibraryFind likely will be most easily implemented by small to medium-sized libraries that have the technical expertise to configure and install it as well as create missing resource connections. Over time, if development continues, and the community of adopters grows, LibraryFind could become an excellent choice for many libraries.

There is another good article in the same journal about improving the transparency of library management, "The Open Door Director" by Michael Casey and Michael Stephens who write a regular column called "The Transparent Library."

Lastly, you might enjoy taking a look at 30 predictions regarding libraries in 2008, by SirsiDynix's VP of Innovation, Stephen Abram.