Technologies For Hybrid Libraries:

Implementation Issues

Brian Kelly

UK Web Focus

UKOLN

University of Bath

Bath, BA2 7AY

UKOLN is funded by the Library and Information Commission, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Higher Education Funding Councils, as well as by project funding from the JISC and the European Union. UKOLN also receives support from the University of Bath where it is based.

This talk looks at what the HE community is doing and raises some implementation issues:

• What's happening with searching?• Deployment models• Cultural Issues

This talk looks at what the HE community is doing and raises some implementation issues:

• What's happening with searching?• Deployment models• Cultural Issues

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Where Are We Now?• Analysis of institutional web search

engines carried out in summer 1999• Report published in

Ariadne web magazine

• See <http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue21/webwatch/>

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Access to institutional search engines is available at: <http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue21/webwatch/survey.html>

Information is being maintained and a follow-up article will be published

Accessing The Search EnginesAccessing The Search Engines

Could be used as basis for a metasearch service of UK Universities

Could be used as basis for a metasearch service of UK Universities

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What Are The Trends?

Institutions seem to be:• Moving away from aging research-like tools

(Harvest, wwwwais, …)• Moving towards popular, out-of-a-box solutions

(ht://Dig, Webinator, etc)• Interested in commercial products, especially for

distributed sites (e.g. Ultraseek)• Smaller sites are experimenting with third-party

indexes (e.g. using AltaVista)• Little interest in re-use of search results

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Areas Of Interest

Postings on mailing lists indicate interest in:• Indexing binary formats (esp. MS Word, PDF, etc.• Indexing multiple servers• Managing preferred hits (e.g. PDF over HTML)

Appears to be little interest in:• Hybrid libraries (apart from usual suspects)• Cross-searching• Subject-specific searching• Moving remote search interface to local server

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Some ExceptionsThe Universities for the North East web site provides a search interface for searching across several web sites – see <http://www.unis4ne.ac.uk/webadmin/search.htm>

The Universities for the North East web site provides a search interface for searching across several web sites – see <http://www.unis4ne.ac.uk/webadmin/search.htm>

OMNI host search interfaces to remote medical services – see <http://www.omni.ac.uk/other-search/>

OMNI host search interfaces to remote medical services – see <http://www.omni.ac.uk/other-search/>

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Some Exceptions (2)• UCISA TLIG have a pilot

index of computing service documentation

• See <http://www.ucisa.ac.uk/TLIG/docs/docshare.htm>

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Web Gateways

Workshop session on "Managing Your Institutional Web Gateway":

• Held at JUSW in Sept 1999 – see <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/jusw-sep1999/workshop/>

• Many gateways have been forgotten about• Many don't appear to have quality assurance or

scoping procedures• Unclear management responsibilities• Little evidence of use of "portal management"

software (with some exceptions such as Leeds, Cranfield, etc.)

• Report to be published in Ariadne shortly

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Case StudyKingston public library has a well-designed gateway which uses a backend database.The top 10 links is an example of a value-added service

http://www.kingston.gov.uk/libs/ref/http://www.kingston.gov.uk/libs/ref/

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Approaches to Deployment

A question for University web teams:

"How can the new technologies and standards be deployed in our environment?"

Should we:• Ignore them? (Browser x doesn’t do CSS,

authoring tools don’t do RDF, etc.)• Accept them fully?• Accept them partly?• Other alternatives

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DeploymentDo Nothing

Cheap – no new software, additional training, …SafeFails to address performance or accessibility issuesDifficult to do new stuff

Addresses performance & accessibility issues

Can deploy new types of applications

ExpensiveTesting neededBackwards

compatibility issues

Use New Developments

Compromise approachMight be expensive in

identifying safe features

Use "Safe" Developments

Use of intelligent servers and proxies

Might be expensiveComplicated?

A Fourth Way

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Cultural IssuesShould we do it ourselves, do it within the open source, research community, or make use of commercial software? Should we do it ourselves, do it within the open source, research community, or make use of commercial software?

Do It OurselvesExploit enthusiasmNo expensive reporting

mechanismsHow the web first

developed in the UK

Do It OurselvesExploit enthusiasmNo expensive reporting

mechanismsHow the web first

developed in the UK

Open Source / CommunityUse of LinuxCommunity software such as IMESH

Toolkit <http://www.imesh.org/toolkit/>

Collaboration with initiatives such as RDN <http://www.rdn.ac.uk/>

Open Source / CommunityUse of LinuxCommunity software such as IMESH

Toolkit <http://www.imesh.org/toolkit/>

Collaboration with initiatives such as RDN <http://www.rdn.ac.uk/>

Use of Commercial ProductsUse MS products such as SiteServer

(cf BUILDER)Use other licensed software (portal

management systems)

Use of Commercial ProductsUse MS products such as SiteServer

(cf BUILDER)Use other licensed software (portal

management systems)

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Questions

Some questions for general discussion:• Do we need to develop a hybrid libraries or can we

rely on interfaces to general search engines (such as AltaVista or a UK-only search engine)?

Many indexing products (Ultraseek, ht://Dig, MS SiteServer, etc.) can index remote sites.

• Why isn't more of this being done?• Is it a scalable solution?

Robot Indexers vs. Other Solutions• What is the preferred solution for the future:

Robot indexers indexing lots of sites Sites providing access using Z39.50 (or an alternative)

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Conclusions

To conclude:• eLib phase 3 projects seem to be ahead of the

community• There are various deployment models for new

standards:Don't implement Implement fullyImplement via proxy Other solutions

• There are a number of approaches to use of applications to implement new standards