Project Overview
With generous support from the Institute of Museum Library Services (IMLS), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) Library will develop advanced search tools to provide academic end-users enhanced resource integration within the distributed information landscape. The project will analyze portal and retrieval mechanisms that can better integrate the Library's existing multiple search and discovery tools in order to provide access to distributed primary and secondary information content. Utilizing transaction log analysis, focus groups and individual interviews, the project will investigate the efficacy of resource integration techniques and the utility of identified search assistance techniques designed to route user search arguments to the most relevant discovery tools and repositories.
A key focus of this project will be transaction log analysis which will inform the creation of search assistance tools that will interpret, analyze, normalize, and classify user-entered search arguments. The project will develop a classification typology of user search arguments with associated mechanisms for determining optimal resource identification and routing to appropriate discovery and repository targets. Search arguments will be routed to the most relevant discovery tools (OPAC, ERM, A & I Services, full-text content providers, etc.) that meet the specific user search needs. The development of the search assistance algorithms, the access tool selection and routing functions, and the integration of retrieved resource content are the keys to the success of the project.
This proposed project will build on previous UIUC Library work on portal design, custom metasearch applications, and adaptive search assistance. The project will use assessment and evaluation measures of prototypes that will include further transaction log analyses, focus groups, individual interviews and surveys. Evaluations will take place in a research and instructional environment comprised of users of the Grainger Engineering Library portal, the undergraduate federated search system, and the Illinois Harvest users. All transaction log data will be captured in these portals which are available to all UIUC students, faculty and staff.