Opening Your Content to Metasearch Services: The Bepress and Ex Libris Experience Karen Groves MetaLib Product Manager
Copyright Statement All of the information and material inclusive of text, images, logos, product names is either the property of, or used with permission by Ex Libris Ltd. The information may not be distributed, modified, displayed, reproduced in whole or in part without the prior written permission of Ex Libris Ltd. TRADEMARKS Ex Libris, the Ex Libris logo, ALEPH 500, SFX, SFXIT, MetaLib, DigiTool, Verde, Primo, MetaSearch, MetaIndex and other Ex Libris products and services referenced herein are trademarks of Ex Libris, and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All other product names, company names, marks and logos referenced may be trademarks of their respective owners. DISCLAIMER The information contained in this document is compiled from various sources and provided on an "AS IS" basis for general information purposes only without any representations, conditions or warranties whether express or implied, including any implied warranties of satisfactory quality, completeness, accuracy or fitness for a particular purpose. Ex Libris, its subsidiaries and related corporations (the "Ex Libris Group") disclaim any and all liability for all use of this information, including losses, damages, claims or expenses any person may incur as a result of the use of this information; even if advised of the possibility of such loss or damage. Ex Libris Ltd., 2006 2
Global distribution and Customers Italy, Spain, Portugal, Norway, Denmark, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Russia, Turkey Mexico 38% Boston Chicago United States UK, Germany, France, 41% Israel China Korea Japan Taiwan Colombia 8 Subsidiaries and Offices 7% Chile Brazil 12% 16 Distributors 2% Australia 3
Ex Libris Growing Product Portfolio Company Evolution ALEPH 500 (1997) 1700+ customers MetaLib (2001) 800+ customers Primo (2006) 6 customers Verde (2005) 50+ customers SFX (2000) 900+ customers DigiTool (2002) 60+ customers Time 4
Our Ex Libris community includes. 45 of the North American top 50 universities 61 of the world s top 100 universities 31 of the world s top 50 technology universities Times Higher Education Supplement World University Rankings (November 2005) 70 of the world s top 100 universities 69 of Europe s top 100 universities Institute of Higher Education Shanghai Jiao Tong University: Academic Ranking of World Universities 2006 71 of the world s top 100 universities Newsweek International (August 2006) 5
MetaLib at a Glance More than 800 MetaLib customers worldwide 66% of MetaLib/SFX customers belong to consortia ARL Member Libraries 40+ Global representation 37 countries, 6 continents MetaLib/SFX Customers by Library Type MetaLib/SFX Customers by Region 3% 1% 3% 4% 5% 85% Academic Corporate Govt/Natl Public Special 31% 1% 3% 3% 61% North America South America Europe Asia Australia Middle East/Africa 6
The Metasearch Evolution Process Query form? Diverse information resources integrated searching = metasearching = cross database searching = parallel searching = broadcast searching = 7
The Metasearch Evolution Resources Library OPAC Library Collection A&I Database Electronic Journal Archive Subject Gateway Newspaper Search Engine More 8
The Metasearch Evolution Access Protocols Structured protocols based on standards Non-HTTP Z39.50 HTTP SRU/SRW XML Gateways Unstructured protocols also known as HTML parsing or screen-scraping HTTP/HTML Metasearch application imitates a browser; interacting with resource s web server 9
Case Study: ResearchNow (Bepress) Searching via MetaLib before NISO MXG 10
What s wrong with screen-scraping? From the user s perspective It said there were hits where are the results? Why aren t these ranked (de-duped, etc.) with the other results? Why doesn t this work again? From the library s perspective This subscription is expensive and our usage statistics are low is it worth it? I wish we could include this in our metasearch but it s down so often! 11
What s wrong with screen-scraping? From the information vendor s perspective Why do our customers tell us their searches fail since we changed our Web site last week? Our customers now want us to be metasearchenabled, but we re just a small vendor it sounds complicated and expensive From the metasearch vendor s perspective Publisher XYZ changed their Web site again we just updated this resource configuration last month! This resource would be used more if we could access the original source records for display in our user interface 12
Ex Libris and Standards MetaLib s Approach 1. MetaLib s KnowledgeBase More than 80% of our resource configurations (connectors) use standard access protocols 2. MetaLib s KnowledgeBase Tools Templates and additional tools for configuring local resources using standard access protocols 3. Active involvement in the standards community We work with information vendors to improve their technology so that we can provide stable, reliable resource configurations to our customers 13
MetaLib s KnowledgeBase and Standards Selected additions 2005-2006: Z39.50 Gateways Project Muse XML Gateways Cambridge Journals Online JSTOR Proquest databases ABC-CLIO databases Web of Science (Thomson Scientific) ScienceDirect and SCOPUS (Elsevier) IEEE Xplore NISO MXG ResearchNow (Berkeley Electronic Press) 14
Ex Libris and Standards Why does it matter? Users want to find information when they need it, and get information wherever they are Metasearching isn t limited to metasearch applications MetaLib s X-Services enable customers to embed metasearch functionality in University portals, Library Web pages, CMS/VLE, user interfaces of their own design, more Primo = Discovery + Delivery Metasearch local resources harvested in Primo Metasearch remote resources via MetaLib In a single user interface 15
NISO MXG Why was it created? The Quest a low barrier of entry to encourage adoption of a standard search and retrieve protocol that would enable consistent processing of search results What is it? NISO Metasearch XML Gateway (MXG) Based on the NISO-registered SRU protocol an immediate, low entry barrier method for content providers to interact with metasearch services. 16
NISO MXG How does it work? URLs sent to retrieve XML responses 3 levels of compliance 3 rd level is fully SRUcompliant Explain record not required NISO Metasearch XML Gateway Implementers Guide (NISO RP-2006-02) Overview/introduction Recommendations for results set metadata Recommendations for citation level metadata (OpenURL 1.0 data elements used as starting point) 17
Case Study: ResearchNow (Bepress) MetaLib and NISO MXG Existing support for SRU XML gateway tools support MXG What was involved? Ex Libris Reviewed NISO MXG documentation with Bepress Reviewed their MXG specification Developed the ResearchNow configuration (connector) in MetaLib Tested the Bepress MXG via MetaLib Bepress Developed MXG specification based on NISO MXG documentation Configured MXG Reviewed the ResearchNow test results with Ex Libris 18
Case Study: ResearchNow (Bepress) Searching via MetaLib after NISO MXG 19
NISO MXG would we do it again? Bepress is pleased to have ResearchNow Full Access available via the XML gateway to MetaLib. We see the implementation of this standard as a definite win for everyone involved in scholarly communications. Faculty and students will now be able, via a single search, to conveniently retrieve high quality scholarship published in bepress journals and held in institutional repositories. Authors can look forward to increased readership thanks to MetaLib exposure and its inclusion along with other databases selected by the end user. The library community will be able to better leverage their software investment against multiple full text resources." - Greg Tananbaum, former President, Berkeley Electronic Press 20
Summary NISO MXG provides: Users a dependable resource to easily search with other resources of interest Ranked, de-duped, OpenURL-enabled results in a unified metasearch interface Libraries more value from their resource subscriptions NISO MXG exposes ResearchNow to Bepress customers via MetaLib More satisfied users Information vendors a low barrier of entry for metasearchenabling their content Quick and easy to implement Metasearch vendors a stable, reliable access protocol Less maintenance of resource configurations (connectors) 21
More Information Would you like to implement NISO MXG to make your content metasearchable? Contact us for more information NISO Metasearch Initiative http://www.niso.org/committees/ms_initiative.html NISO-MI Wiki http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/niso-mi/index.php/main_page Z39.50 and SRU/SRW http://www.loc.gov/z3950/agency/ 22
Thank You Karen Groves karen.groves@exlibrisgroup.com www.exlibrisgroup.com