IGeLU 2014
Deep search or harvest, how do we decide
Simon Moffatt and Illaria Corda, British Library

Context: increasing content, especially digital from a diversity of sources as well as migration form other systems. So there are two options to integrate all this data: through harvesting or with a deep search.
Harvest: put all the data in the central index (Primo)
Deep search: add a new index, so user searches Primo and this other index in a federated way

The decision that the BL had to make was for two major indexes: one was for the replacement of Content Management System and the other one was for the Web Archive

CMS: harvest

The main reasons for choosing harvesting is that the CMS has it's own index, updated daily. Work involved for deep search would be normalisation rules, setting up daily processes etc. The index is not good enough. It only has 50.000 pages which for Primo is not that much.

Records in the CMS
13m from Aleph
5m Sirsi Dynix for sound archive
48m articles from own article catalogue
1m records from other catalogues

Service challenges for 67m records
The index is a very big file (100GB). Overnight schedules are tight. Fast data updates are not possible. Re-indexing is always at least 3hrs, sometimes more. System restart takes 5hrs, re-synch of the search schema is a whole day and the failover system must be available at all times. Must be careful for Primo service packs and hotfixes. Doing the whole index in one go wouldn't be possible so beware when the documentation says "delete index and recreate".

Development challenges
Major normalisations only 3 times a day, need to be careful about impact on services. Implementing Primo enhancements also needs to be considered. In their development environment they have created a sample of all their different datasets. It's also used to test which version of Primo to use etc. Errors have to be found at this point.

But the compensations of big index are:
Speed
Control over the data
Consistency of rules
Common development skills
Single point of failure

Web Archive : deep search

Figures
1.3m documents (pages)
Regular crawl processes
Index size 3.5 terabytes
80-node hadoop cluster where crawls are processed through submission

Implications of choosing the deep search
On the Primo interface there is a tab for the local content and one for the web archive, but otherwise the GUI is the same as are the type of facets etc. Clicking on a web archive record takes to the Ericom system (digitals rights system for e-legal deposit material).

Service challenges for deep search
Introduction of a different point of failure
New troubleshooting procedures
Changes to the solr schema and could break the search
Primo updates can also potentially break the search

Development challenges
Significant development work, e.g. accommodate Primo features such as multi-select faceting, consistency between local and deep search, etc.

But the compensations are:
Ideal for a large index with frequent updates
Indepth indexing
Maintenance of existing scheduled processes
Active community of api developers

Conclusion: Main criteria to decide

Frequency of updates and lots of records then deep is probably better
Budget to buy servers etc.
Development time and skills expertise
Impact on current processes

Questions
Security layer in development api that doesn't expose the solr index
Limitations of Primo: scalability; would exl make local indexes bigger? BL's primo is not hosted. Before work on primo central, we had genuine problems and we worked on them to resolve them. Primo is actually scalable.

IGeLU 2014
FINNA, the best of both worlds
National Library of Finland

FINNA includes material from libraries, museum and archives. It is a discovery interface, though it's more than that. It is a "national view" of the collections but it enables each institution to have it's own view and that's about one hundred that have harvested in test, with 50 that are in production. FINNA is based on the open source discovery service VuFind.

FINNA architecture
Usually the various indexes have their own repositories. The description and the links of the electronic resources are kept in MetaLib and the linking is done with SFX. Universities are always worried that the Primo central index doesn't have all the content they want so that's why there's a need to keep MetaLib. But Primo central index is included in the architecture.

The interface contains tabs for each separate index, the only material harvested is that which can be accessed by everyone, one of the reason being that it's difficult to integrate them together. That's one of the reasons why they didn't make a deal with ProQuest (before they had an agreement with ExLibris). So there's as "split view" between the local content and that from Primo central index. With a combined view it's not possible to say to the user all that we want so it's a showcase for a single search box and filtering happens later. Blending doesn't allow a proper relevancy ranking.

Another problem is that there is some duplication in different indexes, e.g. ebooks. It has also been a challenge naming the tabs so in the end the universities can do on which ever way they want. Finally how to make sure users get the best or correct content? One solution is authentication (? I think).

IGeLU 2014
The Primo graphical user interface
Matthias Einbrodt, university of Bolzano

Relatively small library. Live with Primo since 2011, one of the early adopters, so live in Jan 2013. New interface was developed and will go live soon.

• First had custom stylesheet but it became too big and difficult to maintain. We're aware that users don't wait longer than 2 or 3 seconds on a webpage for it to load
• Broadband not very performing so not helping

So solutions:

• Reduction of http requests
• Only loaded one dontfile
• Didn't use css images
• Rewrote css from scratch using dynamic stylesheets, media queries, object oriented css, variables, nesting, mixins, etc.
• Produce LESS files which are less numerous than css
• Advantages of dynamic stylesheets language: you can break down into parts
• Creation of central configuration files

Downside: Changing the css is very time consuming

Object Oriented CSS

• don't repeat unnecessarily
• code reuse
• separation of structure from skin: build instructions (structure), then build the outside look (visual features) so that means define a base class so whatever the context/containers is, the content/properties shouldn't change
• iFrames create problems, no control over those elements,

IGeLU 2014
Meeting the discovery challenge: user expectations, usability and Primo
Andy Land, Manchester University

Collection is about 4millions. Use Primo since 2010 and move to Alma in 2013. Carried out a research into students needs and usability of Primo in this context. They call it "Library Search". The results show:

• Most heavily used service in the library
• Google comes first but LS is second
• Same for accessing digital content although LS comes first for science related subjects
• LS comes first when wanting to find a known item
• Some functionalities we're liked e.g. facets
• Less liked e.g pre-search filtering

This highlighted a degree of concerns with regards to Primo. There's a general discomfort with discovery with the users. Before move to Alma users we're mostly using the catalogue and suddenly we're swamped by content. They would often limit themselves to the first results on the screen, not using the other filters. Work done with Ex Libris and in BackOffice to address these issues. Example

• Changed pre-filters with tabs: search everything vs library catalogue only
• Modified display of facets e.g. their order
• Frberisation was a problem for users so work was done to keep things simpler
• Improved display with visible colours, use of white spaces, tabs etc. to better highlight things
• Spelling suggestions made more visible
• Add "sign in" links in numerous places
• Suggestions to improve metadata in the community zone e.g. authors presented with different names
• Launched a live chat service with library experts
• Other projects o use stuff as crowdsourcing  etc.