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Hi Steve and Renata, First the declaration of interest: I am the CTO of a federated search system company. However I am not trying to suggest you should use our (or any) federated search system (so I will, coyly, not attach a signature to this email). I am interested in your comments on either or both of two questions: Use an search engine and create an aggregated database/index of all the material from the organization, or use a federated search system to search the repositories/catalogs/databases/etc. in real time? Did you consider both? And why the choice you made? Build vs. Buy? It obviously has taken Steve and his colleagues a lot of hard work to produce a nice looking system (except for all those big black bits on the screen!) and it obviously takes maintenance (it is 'fragile') Do you think it was/is worth it and if so why? Peter Noerr > -----Original Message----- > From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of > Steve Oberg > Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2008 8:21 AM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Enterprise Search and library collection > [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] > > Renata and others, > > After posting my original reply I realized how dumb it was to respond > but > say, sorry, can't tell you more. As an aside, this is one of the > things > that irritates me the most about working in a for profit environment: > the > control exerted by MPOW over just about anything. But hey, this is the > job > situation I've consciously chosen so, I guess I shouldn't complain. > > Although I can't name names and go into detail about our > implementation, I > have "anonymized" screenshots of various aspects of it and posted > details > about it at > http://familymanlibrarian.com/2007/01/21/more-on-turning-the-catalog- > inside-out/ > Keep in mind that my involvement has been focused on the catalog side. > A > lot of the behind-the-scenes work also dealt with matching subject > terms in > catalog records to the much simpler taxonomy chosen for our website. > You > can imagine that it can be quite complicated to set up a good rule set > for > matching LCSH or MeSH terms effectively to a more generic set of > taxonomy > terms and have those be meaningful to end users. We are continually > evaluating and tweaking this setup. > > As far as other general details, this implementation involved a lot of > people, in fact a team of about 15, some more directly and exclusively > and > others peripherally. In terms of maintenance, day to day maintenance > is > handled by about three FTE. Our library catalog data is refreshed once > a > day, as is the citation database to which I referred in the previous > email, > and content from our web content management environment. A few other > repositories are updated weekly because their content isn't as > volatile. > The whole planning and implementation process took a year and is still > really working through implementation issues. For example we recently > upgraded the version of our enterprise search tool to a newer version > and > this was a major change requiring a lot of resources and it took a lot > more > time to do than expected. > > I hope this additional information is helpful. > > Steve > > On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 1:11 AM, Dyer, Renata > <[log in to unmask]> > wrote: > > > Our organisation is looking into getting an enterprise search and I > was > > wondering how many libraries out there have incorporated library > > collection into a 'federated' search that would retrieve a whole lot: > > a library collection items, external sources (websites, databases), > > internal documents (available on share drives and/or records > systems), > > maybe even records from other internal applications, etc.? > > > > > > I would like to hear about your experience and what is good or bad > about > > it. > > > > Please reply on or offline whichever more convenient. > > > > I'll collate answers. > > > > Thanks, > > > > Renata Dyer > > Systems Librarian > > Information Services > > The Treasury > > Langton Crescent, Parkes ACT 2600 Australia > > (p) 02 6263 2736 > > (f) 02 6263 2738 > > (e) [log in to unmask] > > > > <https://adot.sirsidynix.net.au/uhtbin/cgisirsi/ruzseo2h7g/0/0/49> > > > > > > > ********************************************************************** > > Please Note: The information contained in this e-mail message > > and any attached files may be confidential information and > > may also be the subject of legal professional privilege. If you are > > not the intended recipient, any use, disclosure or copying of this > > e-mail is unauthorised. If you have received this e-mail by error > > please notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail and delete all > > copies of this transmission together with any attachments. > > > ********************************************************************** > >