MetaLib Hidden Treasures & Endangered Species: Exploring Strategies for Library Success
Uncover the hidden potential of MetaLib beyond metasearch as Mario Kowalak delves into product placement, marketing strategies, and the evolving role of discovery tools in libraries. Discover the importance of personalization, deep linking, and visibility of collections for enhancing user experiences. Gain insights into the misunderstood power of MetaLib and its impact on modern library services. Explore the delicate balance between tradition and innovation in library resource management.
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MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species Mario Kowalak (University Library, FU Berlin) IGeLU Conference, 8 10 Sept. 2013, Freie Universit t Berlin
MetaLib: hidden treasures Agenda Introduction: misunderstanding MetaLib Product placement & marketing strategies: more than metasearch ! Things to do (better) with MetaLib: Source guide Personalization Visibility of collections Deep linking IRD export to webpages Conclusions & perspectives MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013 2
MetaLib: hidden treasures Introduction: misunderstanding MetaLib When MetaLib (ML) came into the market, it was always associated with (and reduced to) metasearch or federated search. In the early years of the new millennium federated search was thought to be a kind of "killer application". [But - as we know now - it wasn't ... ;-)] MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013 3
MetaLib: hidden treasures Introduction: misunderstanding MetaLib When librarians recognized that metasearch was obviously overestimated and additionally took into account the performance problems of federated search, many were disappointed and turned away ... Federated Search MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013 4
MetaLib: hidden treasures Introduction: misunderstanding MetaLib Faced with "next generation" discovery tools, many librarians think that metasearch is outdated. This seems to be another false estimation because at least at a medium-term federated or metasearch is necessary as a standard retrieval tool for many sources (for e.g. bibliographic databases). It still is extremely helpful to many customers and will complement our major discovery solutions. MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013 5
MetaLib: hidden treasures Product placement & marketing strategies: more than metasearch ! Even the Ex Libris product marketing is "poor" in that case, focussing only on metasearch ... "MetaLib provides users with a coherent and friendly environment for metasearching, and enables them to view retrieved results in a manageable, unified format." (see http://www.exlibrisgroup.com/category/UsingMetaLib) MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013 6
MetaLib: hidden treasures Product placement & marketing strategies: more than metasearch ! Virtual reading room! ;-) Archive? Only metasearch tool? OPAC for e-resources? How to use MetaLib? MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013 7
MetaLib: hidden treasures Product placement & marketing strategies: more than metasearch ! Creative desktop / work room searching in and for relevant electronic resources Integration of e-resources Integrated link resolver Resource discovery ( Find databases ) Interactive and powerful tool to work with relevant electronic sources Personalization Metasearch MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013 8
MetaLib: hidden treasures Things to do (better) with MetaLib: source guide When libraries discovered the WWW, many of them began to build more or less ambitious web directories (HTML-lists of hyperlinks). With ML we rigorously cut our lists of hyperlinks and integrated the most valuable freesources into ML, the place where all relevant e-resources (databases, bibliographies, reference works, collections ...) should be concentrated. MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013 9
MetaLib: hidden treasures Things to do (better) with MetaLib: source guide No more confusing and endless lists with hyperlinks ... "Find databases" = modern source guide for relevant licensed and free e-resources easy & intuitive dynamic sophisticated field based search boolean operators sources with rich descriptions (DDC, type, period) & annotations many of the sources are ready for metasearch by CKB MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013 10
MetaLib: hidden treasures Things to do (better) with MetaLib: source guide Right now compared with ML, "find database" functionality in Primo is less powerful! MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013 11
MetaLib: hidden treasures Things to do (better) with MetaLib: source guide Presenting latest or new databases and trials immediately to our customers ... MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013 12
MetaLib: hidden treasures Things to do (better) with MetaLib: personalization Having your own interactive reading room for e-resources! The personalization features concerning e-resources are more powerful in ML than in Primo as of now: collecting any source as your favourite (not just metasearch databases) have as many personal search sets as you like (not just 1) have your own favourite e-journals at your fingertips MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013 13
MetaLib: hidden treasures Things to do (better) with MetaLib: visibility of collections We aim to have records of each single electronic monograph ("e- book") in our catalog / discovery tools. But what about the collections, publisher and aggregator platforms themselves? Searching in a complete e-book collection on a full text basis is an interesting and fascinating retrieval option for customers. With ML we catalog and present each publisher / aggregator platform, if at least 15 titles are bought or licensed there ( export to Primo). No other cataloging tool gives that kind of access to platforms and collections! (Many platforms are ready for federated search.) MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013 14
MetaLib: hidden treasures Things to do (better) with MetaLib: visibility of collections MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013 15
MetaLib: hidden treasures Things to do (better) with MetaLib: deep linking Deep linking is a great opportunity to give our customers direct access to special groups of or single ML-sources. Addresses can be based on nearly all kinds of requests from the "find database" section (DDC, title words etc.). The URL should be stable and dynamically reflect all updates concerning new resources. Application example: A faculty library or a faculty wants to present some relevant e- resources on their homepage, but does not want to care for updating the related hyperlink list. MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013 16
MetaLib: hidden treasures Things to do (better) with MetaLib: deep linking MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013 17
MetaLib: hidden treasures Things to do (better) with MetaLib: IRD export to webpages Problem: How to make ML-sources visible to customers, who don't use our classical discovery tools (deep web or invisible web problem)? Solution: To make our ML-sources more visible, we create script based HTML-pages out of ML-IRDs, to be indexed by Google and other search engines. If our customers search Google for a databases name e.g. and combine this with 'FU Berlin', they get the corresponding landing page to directly access the source. MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013 18
MetaLib: hidden treasures Things to do (better) with MetaLib: IRD export to webpages MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013 19
MetaLib: hidden treasures Things to do (better) with MetaLib: IRD export to webpages MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013 20
MetaLib: hidden treasures Conclusions & perspectives Metasearch will continue to play an important role for retrieval and discovery for the next years. But MetaLib can be much more than metasearch ... MetaLib is a great interactive tool and a significant component for ERM context (cataloging, guiding, presenting and searching e-resources), but in the end librarians and library users are not interested in products, but in functionalities! MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013 21
MetaLib: hidden treasures Conclusions & perspectives The integration / interoperability between ML and Primo (front end) is on a good way. But Primo should be (at least) on the same functional level like ML ("find databases", personalization etc.). The integration of ML with Aleph / Verde or next generation back end Alma seems to be poor and a serious problem (no metadata exchange?); from today s view ML looks like an isolated"island" or a library within a library. MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013 22
MetaLib: hidden treasures Conclusions & perspectives Rethink MetaLib! (Will it survive as a stand-alone product?) Rethink the functionalities, the potential, the workflows and the different ways ML is set up in libraries! Provide interfaces & connections ( Alma )! Save, improve and move forward ML functionalities! MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013 23
MetaLib: hidden treasures Thank you! Questions, ideas ? kowalak@ub.fu-berlin.de MetaLib: hidden treasures & endangered species / M. Kowalak +++ IGeLU Conference FU Berlin, Sept. 9th 2013 24
