Quicksearch Update November 2015

The Quicksearch implementation team has been busy this fall with two major projects.

The first project was to improve the indexing of Morris and Orbis records. Work began with the Books+ Search Analysis Working Group, a broad-based team of technical services stakeholders, led by Quicksearch team member Arcadia Falcone.  The group wrote a recommendation document highlighting changes to searching, faceting, and sorting in Quicksearch.  The changes were then reviewed by the Cataloging Coordinating Committee and the User Experience Advisory Committee.  The approved recommendations were then implemented by Quicksearch team members in a series of code updates and a full extract and re-load of over 10.3 million Morris and Orbis records.  A new Subject (Local Yale) facet is just one of the recommended changes now available in Quicksearch.  A few recommended changes related to facet and sort labels are still in progress and will be available in production Quicksearch within the next week.

This fall the team has also been busy improving the layout, design, and content of holdings in the Quicksearch single item view.  A new streamlined design was introduced to Quicksearch earlier in the fall, with improved indentation designed to make it easier to see individual holdings for items with numerous holdings statements.  Holdings notes relating to the Provenance and description of individual special collections items were also added to the holdings display.  Finally, the mobile view of holdings has been revised, and is continuing to undergo review.

Currently on the development front – the team has now embarked on the project to implement Aeon and Scan and Deliver requests in Quicksearch.  In addition to adding new request types, we will re-design the request links in the item view, making the options to request from Orbis, Morris, Scan and Deliver or Aeon, easier to find and use for our patrons.  We hope to make all of these request types available in time for our January roll-out of Quicksearch.

 

Quicksearch Update April 2015

Several new features and bug fixes were rolled out in the first two weeks of April.

We did a full extract and re-load of all Orbis and Morris records, in order to take advantage of several changes we made in response to user Feedback.

To highlight a few of the changes made possible by the re-load:

  • All records will now have an Acquisitions Date, so sorting by Acquisitions Date will make more sense when sorting by ‘Acquired earliest’
  • URL Links stored in the MFHD are now extracted and will appear in the holdings section of the item view.
  • We updated the format mappings and labels for two formats – “Archives or Manuscripts” and “Dissertations & Theses”.  For more information about format mapping changes, see: How Quicksearch Assigns Format Facet Terms
  • We updated language mapping to add ISO 693-2 codes
  • We added 69x local subject fields to the Subject Index
  • We fixed the Google Books bug that sometimes caused the incorrect book cover to display

The total number of records extracted and re-loaded was:

Morris records: 459,491
Orbis records: 9,787,510

For a full list of bugs fixed in the April update, see the Quicksearch 4.0 Release Notes.

Orbis and Quicksearch beta: planning for production

As we’ve noted often in posts and talks around the library, LIT is working on a new interface, Quicksearch beta, for searching records from two library catalogs: Orbis and Morris. We are currently soliciting input on prioritization of functionality development.  While we do this work it is worth noting that there are no plans to retire the Orbis and Morris interfaces.

The Solr-based Quicksearch beta is a very good simplified keyword search of catalog records. It offers superior relevancy ranking of search results. The faceted results it provides are useful for giving more visibility to the metadata in catalog records. However, it does not offer advanced searching at this time, and for some collections and staff advanced search is a necessity. Therefore, Orbis will remain a fully-supported production service, even as Quicksearch beta develops and becomes a more full-featured service. We will work toward a shift by  the spring semester 2016, where Quicksearch will drop its beta status and become the featured search on the library’s home page, but Orbis and Morris will still have important roles to play and will still be available and linked from the library’s home page.

 

First Library Tech Talk Lightning Round

Today LIT did its first Tech Talk Lightning Round. In this format LIT staff give a very brief five minute update and then take ten minutes of questions and discussion. Feedback about this talk was very positive, and we hope to do another in April with the same format. Please send us suggestions for updates and project overviews you would like to hear about at the talk.

This time staff presented

  • Quicksearch beta
  • Aeon
  • Libguides 2
  • EZproxy Pilot

For those of you who could not make the talk here are the slides and some very rough notes from the discussion.

Notes

Quicksearch beta (Kalee Sprague) 
Milestones 
  • went live with public beta on Feb 6
  • traveling information sessions to different departments
  • draft bookmarks to hand out
  • continuing new development – new features through fall 2015
  • dynamic display of Morris statuses 
  • goal is to have stable  release for fall 2015
  • Quicksearch becomes prominent on the library’s home page in January 2016. This does NOT mean Orbis is gone, just takes a step back in prominence.
  • Demo’ed a search for justice resnik. Facets can be used to include or exclude material (using IS NOT). Is not functionality has been requested for years.

QUESTIONS

  •  MARC for eresources are loaded to Orbis/Morris – what deduping will there be in QS? Will we cease loading e-records?
    ANSWER from cataloging – we do coordinate with Law library on ebooks. After some discussion there was some agreement that all records should continue to be loaded in catalogs, we can dedupe at the point of ingest to Quicksearch.  Noted also that occurrence of duplication between Law and SML is rare
  • Will search Articles+ be replaced?
    ANSWER- we are focusing on making Articles+ work with QS beta now
  •  When we will push to students?
    ANSWER  It’s public beta and some staff are teaching or showing QSbeta, but others are waiting until Fall 2015.
    There was another comment that Articles+ is very helpful for some students, especially date limits, and it should continue to be prominent (not just in Quicksearch).
  • Finally, LIT staff are looking for feedback from RIO and other groups, please invite us to speak and demo!
Aeon (Melissa Wisner)
Overview of changes scheduled for Aeon, including the expanded use by the Lewis Walpole and Cushing/Whitney Medical Historical libraries.
  • Aeon is expanding – patron registration now available at all YUL Special Collections Libraries
  • Go to website, connect to link and be prompted to create account
  • TOU agreement (privacy, id type, security)
  • Staff approves request for access to materials
  • Once the user is approved, she can now request from any collection!
  • Showed Special Collections LibGuide
  • All Yale community members need to self-initiate registration in Aeon
  • aeonrouting.library.yale.edu

QUESTIONS:

  •  Right now, a patron can’t go to one interface to say they want items from multiple collections- is there an interest in simplifying that process?
  • ANSWER Routing from the different discovery places happens per item (because each special collection has its own Aeon instance) Unification for multi-collection requests might be further down the road.
    It was noted problem requesting things by location/instance because you need to physically go to the location to view or pick up. YFAD does do cross collection search
  • Do you have to register twice –
    ANSWER No just once!
  • We are interested in using same authentication for all services for people who are not Yale community members, I think Steelsen is working on that.
    ANSWER: It would be nice to be able to manage patrons universally for the Library across services.
  • Michael Dula noted we are moving towards using Aeon as the way to manage non-Yale people’s authentication.
Libguides V2 (Steve Wieda)
Overview of the project to upgrade to a new version of Libguides, the software behind library subject guides http://guides.library.yale.edu
  • Implementation project going on now until summer
  • New features – responsive design. professional look and feel, improved authoring interface
  • Responsive design – mobile versions are automatically created.
  • There is a more professional look rightout of the box, without any customization.
  •  Huge improvement is spell check as you type!
  • Timeline and milestones – LG2 implementaton group meeting regularly
    • roadshows in March and April
    • training in June
    • roll out on July 31st

QUESTIONS

  • Is there integration with online learning systems?
    ANSWER: not so much, but tighter with other Springshare 2.0 products, still having links into Classesv2 via LTI
  • Andy S. – will migration take whats existing now an dput into new guides? will you need to do much cleanup?
    ANSWER some box types are no longer supported so these may need some cleanup (TOC, feedback, etc). There will be doco for this before that time comes.
  • Is the migration only going to take published guides?
    ANSWER published and unpublished both will migrate.
  • Will there be changes in A to Z list of databases (provided in Libguides)?
    ANSWER: Permanent will be available, subject tagging and database content type tagging.
  • Will there be data about traffic through guides still available?
    ANSWER Historic data needs to be downloaded before migration. looking at new solution for getting data from guides – Libguides stats dashboard coming soon.  Watch for an announcement coming later next week about training and a new dashboard for Libguides use data.
EZproxy Pilot (Ray Frohlich)
Preview of the upcoming pilot of EZproxy at Yale . EZproxy is a tool many schools use for providing access to restricted e-resources.
  • We use VPN, which works for most, but not all, Yale patrons. It is a particular problem for the medical school and affiliated hospitals, and occasionally for some students and faculty abroad.
  • Medical maintains a squid proxy, but they are phasing it out. 
  • VPN does not provide fine-grained access control to services. It is an all or nothing service. EZProxy can introduce more granular control.
  • VPN may also not install correctly on some computers/mobile devices.
  • Purpose of pilot is to test if these use cases can be solved by EZProxy.
  • We are partnering with ITS on this as part of largerauthentication project.
  • In phase one the test team will discuss roles of staff support, etc and will configure the EZproxy.
  • Phase 2 is rollout, targeted testing with faculty staff and students

QUESTIONS:

  • How does this dovetail with ITS dual factor authentication?
    ANSWER:ITS wants to roll out two step authorization for VPN and hen CAS?Outlook on web is Phase 2.
  • Does that mean better cell service in bass?
    ANSWER no idea!
  • Do you have lists of test users, or are you open to suggestions?
    ANSWER we are open to suggestions/ideas for test cases. We are interested in user populations  and testing different types of resources.  Specifically let us know about resources that use exotic tech or may be problematic in other ways.
  • What does this mean, do you have to install it?
    ANSWER no, we are looking at providing EZproxy access through plugin in browser that will employ EZproxy. Such plugins exist, but we would like to start a project with ITS to improve the plugin so that the user only turns the plugin on once and then links are automatically routed through EZproxy.
  • There are ebook databases that requires individual logins, despite VPN. They say to use EZ proxy to get around this. Should I send?
    ANSWER Yes, sounds like it might be Books24x7, which is on the list to test.
  • Have you heard about EduRoam
    ANSWER will look into this

Other Information about EZproxy

It doesn’t solve ALL of our offsite access problems. Look for a fall implementation. It was pointed out by several in the audience that new people come to some schools in the middle of the summer, particularly impacts medical and CSSSI. We need to be ready for the mid-summer turnover.

Quicksearch beta Information Sessions Begun

To support front line/public services and troubleshooting staff after the debut of Quicksearch beta on the Library Front Door, Library IT has created an FAQ document, in case any problems are reported through these typical channels.

Additionally, Library IT has held five informational/demo sessions staff on Quicksearch beta to date, in both Bass and Hillhouse. We’ve gotten really great feedback from these sessions, and we encourage all staff to let us know if you have questions, comments, or other feedback on the Quicksearch beta project.

Many staff have found it useful to use Quicksearch beta as they do their daily work. Again, please be encouraged to click here  and share your thoughts with the implementation team.

We are beginning to focus more now on information sessions targeted at different groups. Representatives from the Quicksearch beta implementation team will be visiting a Tech Services department meeting next month, and hope to do more information sessions for other departments and groups.

Look for more documentation, tips and other information on Quicksearch beta in the coming weeks!

Please email Kalee Sprague (kalee.sprague@yale.edu ) or Jenn Nolte (jennifer.nolte@yale.edu ) for questions about the info sessions, or to request a visit to your group or department.

Quicksearch beta Quick Tip–Format Facets

Often searches in the catalogs bring back a lot of material, and you might only want certain types, for example only online material (or books, or only journals). In Quicksearch beta these are both examples of format facets.

It only takes a few seconds to limit a search to a type of format. For example, limit a large number of results for the search ‘diabetes’ to only find digital or online material.

  • Do your search, and then go into only Books+. Do that using the Books+ link on the left side or the link for ‘see all 3,558 results.’

all books

 

 

  • In the resulting display, look on the left under the Format facet for the value ‘Online.’

facetss

 

  • Select Online, and only digital material will be displayed. You can also select Journals & Newspapers, and only online journals will be displayed. The final screen shot shows how a large search has been limited to far few items. To remove the limits, just click on the X next to the format. 

 

facets used 

The search results are now a more narrowly focused group of 132 records for online journals or newspapers held at either the Yale University Library or the Yale Law Library.

Quicksearch beta Quick Tip–Limit to a Library Location

Quicksearch exposes library content with facets. They make it easier than ever to explore library metadata about authors, book locations, formats, and subjects. For example, it is easy to find items in a specific library, for example the Music Library.

Do a search in Books+ and look on the left under Location.

loc facet

 

 

 

 

To see all the locations for this search, click on the + to expand the list. Music Library is one of the options displayed.

locs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Select Music Library, and only those items held in the Yale Music Library will be listed.

5987192193155072

 

Quicksearch beta Quick Tip- How to see all of Orbis or Morris with 2 clicks!

Another nice feature of Quicksearch beta is the ability to see the entire Orbis, Morris, or combined catalogs at a glance. The Quicksearch beta Books+ search uses what’s called a SOLR index, which allows for wider and faster keyword and indexed searches. This is what enables us to see all of our catalog quickly.

In the screencast below, watch as I call back all of Orbis and Morris together in under 3 seconds (after hitting the search    button):

http://www.screencast.com/t/2xamiNvb4Iw

Quicksearch beta Quick Tip–Using Subject Facets

The Subject facet is a great way to explore search results in various topics. Now you can also combine subjects in different ways using the facet connectors ‘Any of’ and ‘All of.’

To see Subject facets you need to either be in Books+ or Articles+.

Here is an example.

  • In Books+ do a search for ‘measles.’
  • Find the Subject facet on the left. Open the facet and select some subject headings for: Vaccination, Communicable Disease Control and Prevention.

all of

 

  • Once these are selected you’ll see the subjects listed at the top of the page. With these three subjects your search is now very narrow, with only 2 results. 

all of

 

You can change this to a wider search by flipping the Change the All Of indicator to Any of. This will make the search broader, picking up more records. 

any of