About the Project
University researchers and students must navigate a myriad of surface and hidden Web content made available through multiple access mechanisms. These distributed primary and secondary information resources include:
- licensed publisher full-text repositories;
- locally digitized primary resources;
- full-text content from large-scale digitization projects, such as Google Book and Open Content Alliance initiatives;
- faculty and student generated scholarly, instructional, and grey content; and
- Open Archive Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) and other harvested or spidered objects.
Moreover, the integration of these information resources must be accomplished within a search and discovery environment comprised of overarching library, campus, and vertical portals that guide users through:
- local and national online public catalogs,
- Abstracting and Indexing (A & I) services with value-added full-text link resolver transports,
- electronic resource management (ERM) systems,
- digital asset management systems,
- institutional repositories,
- course management systems,
- broad-based and vertical Web search engines, and
- social networking mechanisms.
The project will utilize portal mechanisms that build on metasearch technologies and assisted search techniques developed and deployed over the last year at the UIUC Library. The portals were implemented in a custom engineering and physics portal, an undergraduate federated search system, and Illinois Harvest--a site that provides access to digital scholarly resources about Illinois or by Illinois scholars.
For more information, see documents.
