Federated Search The Good and the Bad Abe

Federated Search: The Good and the Bad Abe Lederman, President and CTO Deep Web Technologies, Inc. APLA 2008 - May 9, 2008

Who We Are… l Founded in 2002 l Headquartered in Santa Fe, New Mexico l 20 Employees l Over $2 million in R&D funding DWT is focused on providing state-of-the-art federated search products and solutions which search, retrieve, aggregate and analyze content from web-based databases.

Abe Lederman-Background l l Earned B. S. and M. S. Computer Science degrees, MIT Began work in information retrieval in 1988 • Co-founded Verity Developed some of the first web-based applications that searched text-based content, 1994 Pioneered “Deep Web” searching in 1999 • Founded Deep Web Technologies, 2002

Some of Deep Web’s Customers l Department of Defense l DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information l Intel Corporate Library l National Agricultural Library l Scitopia. org l Stanford University

What is Federated Search? Federated Search is an application or service that allows a user to submit a search in parallel to multiple, distributed information sources and retrieve aggregated, ranked and de-duped results.

In Other Words… One Search, Many Sources Begin Search Subscription Sources News E-Books Public Web Sources Library Catalogs Blogs & Wikis

Benefits of Federated Search l l One-stop access to multiple information sources • Users don’t need to know where/how to search • Saves researcher time and money • Improves utilization of information sources Consolidated, ranked and de-duped results • Important results are not missed Information Discovery

Employees often asked, “Why can’t the Intel Library site work like Google or Yahoo? ” Federated Search at the Intel Library

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Why Aren’t all Federated Search Engines Equal? 1. Quality of search results 2. User Interface 3. Results Delivery 4. Administrative Console

Quality of Search Results l Thorough connector development l Boolean and Fielded Searching l Number of results retrieved from each source l Relevance Ranking of retrieved data

User Interface l “Intuitive” navigation l Rich feature set l Display of results incrementally l Integration with library’s website (supports multiple search pages) l Powerful web 2. 0 interface

Results Delivery l Aggregated, ranked results l Clustering/grouping of results l Analysis tools such as filters and sorts l Results Export to RSS, Email, Citation manager l Alerts

Administrative Console l Enable/disable connectors l Create search boxes and search pages easily l Metrics

Bottom Line Federated search engines have varying strengths and weaknesses. Select the federated search that is best for your organization.

Recommendations for selecting the “best” federated search engine for your library.

“Basically, anything that results in a more enjoyable search experience, will lead users to spend more time with a particular federated search product and thus derive value from those highly relevant results, assuming they are easy to find. This is where a pleasant and uncluttered layout, intuitive navigation, and a good amount of Ajax to minimize page refreshes combine with highly relevant search results to create the perfect user experience. From The Federated Search Blog www. federatedsearchblog. com Sponsored by

What Is Important (and what’s not) Quality of Results Intuitive Interface Ranking Alerts Full-Text Access Internal Sources User Satisfaction Real-Time Search Elegant Presentation Metadata Analysis Features Cost Time-Saving Clusters – Facets – Visualizations Simplify Access Standards Premium Content Sources Information Discovery Administrative Interface

Bringing Federated Search to your Library l Clearly Define Your Organization’s Requirements l Create Evaluation Criteria l Evaluate Vendors l Test-Test

Narrowing Down Your Vendor Choices Vendors Select Vendors to Evaluate Send Evaluations Demo Products Conduct Pilots Deploy Solution

Clearly Define Your Organization’s Requirements l Compile your list of sources to federate • Determine sources to search from each search page l l l Licensed Product vs. Managed Solution Budget Staff Resources Timelines Determine features important to users

Create Evaluation Criteria Compile a list of requirements and features a vendor must provide. l Add additional features you would like to have. l Create a vendor checklist. l Evaluate responses. l

Sample Vendor Checklist: Company Viability Question Explain the history of your company Who currently uses your product? Please provide three (3) references we may contact. Vendor Response

Sample Vendor Checklist: Architecture and Integration Question Is your product compatible with a URL resolver? Proxies? Can we incorporate an API interface for integrating with internal sources (web services)? Is your product compatible with existing systems such as an ILS? What browsers is your product compatible with? (IE 6, IE 7, Firefox, Safari) Vendor Response

Sample Vendor Checklist: Connectors Question What protocols are supported? (HTTP/HTML, Z 39. 50, XML, SRU/SRW) Will you support custom connector development? What is the size of your connector catalog? How easy is it to add new connectors? Can we do it, or do we need to go through you? Vendor Response

Sample Vendor Checklist: Results Display Question Does your product support relevance ranking? Can your product sort by an element of a result (author, relevance, date, title, source)? Does your product support highlighting of search terms within a results set? Does your product de-dupe results? Are the de-duping criteria adjustable? Vendor Response

Vendor Evaluation l Demonstrations and Pilots • Is a pilot necessary? • How long of a pilot? • Should we do multiple pilots? • Conduct focus groups • Fulfillment of requirements Do you offer a free pilot evaluation of your software? Would your pilot be hosted by you, or installed locally? How long do your pilot evaluations usually last? What would we need to provide you for a pilot evaluation? and features Remember: Federated Search is a long-term commitment to a vendor.

Test-Test l Scripting your tests • Test each engine against the same criteria (same queries, same sources) l Break-dancing l Vendor Response • How sturdy is the engine? • How quickly (or slowly) does the vendor respond to your needs?

The Future of Federated Search l l Multi-lingual searching Personal libraries Automated source selection Integration with social networking tools

Deep Web’s Search Gallery

Resources l l The Federated Search Blog • www. federatedsearchblog. com Sample Vendor Checklist • Email me: abe@deepwebtech. com l Federated Search: Solution or Setback for Online Library Services Edited by Christopher Cox

Thank You! Abe Lederman abe@deepwebtech. com