Hi Sarah Beth,

I implemented something like this on our AZ page at Macalester College. The
wording we went with was "Find Research Databases". I also put a link below
the search box that says "What am I searching?" that goes to a brief
explanation.

I capture the searches, and I try to correct some common spelling mistakes.
We don't have a huge infrastructure behind this, and there are no type-ahead
suggestions at this point.

We also make some general suggestions when the search results are empty.
And based on some sporadic reviewing of the keywords I try to route users to
certain databases. In some cases, I have added tags for databases based on
words linked to assignments. For example, if you search for dinosaur, you
get BioOne, or Romeo and Juliet brings up a Shakespeare database. If you
search for a state or a country you get geographical databases. It would be
nice to have some great semantic engine behind this that is not too
difficult to implement.

I am guessing the majority of users don't read the explanatory text or
headings very carefully - some user testing would be great. Looking at the
keywords, the majority of searches tend to have been entered more than one
time. About 58% of the keywords have entered been more than 5 times. The
most commonly searched for items are well-known database names.

Johan

-- 
Johan Oberg
Digital Scholarship and Services Librarian
DeWitt Wallace Library
Macalester College
St Paul, MN 55105
651-696-6003
http://www.macalester.edu/library/

On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 07:22, Sarah Weeks <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Long time lurker, first time poster.
> I have a little usability question I was hoping someone could give me
> advice
> on.
> I'm updating the databases page on our website and we'd like to add a
> search
> box that would search certain fields we have set up for our databases
> (title, vendor, etc...) so that even if someone doesn't remember the first
> word in the title, they can quickly find the database they're looking
> through without having to scroll through the whole A-Z list.
> My question is: if we add a search box to our main database page, how can
> we
> make it clear that it's for searching FOR a database and not IN a database?
> Some of the choices we've considered are:
> Seach for a database:
> Search this list:
> Don't remember the name of the database? Search here:
>
> I'm not feeling convinced by any of them. I'm afraid when people see a
> search box they're not going to bother reading the text but will just
> assume
> it's a federated search tool.
>
> Any advice?
>
> -Sarah Beth
>
> --
> Sarah Beth Weeks
> Interim Head Librarian of Technical Services and Systems
> St Olaf College Rolvaag Memorial Library
> 1510 St. Olaf Avenue
> Northfield, MN 55057
> 507-786-3453 (office)
> 717-504-0182 (cell)
>



-- 
Johan Oberg
Digital Scholarship and Services Librarian
DeWitt Wallace Library
Macalester College
St Paul, MN 55105
651-696-6003
http://www.macalester.edu/library/