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One Search

Why "One Search"?

It is apparent based on observations during the NLA Web Site Usability Review and from analysing the Library's site search logs that many users do not understand the scope for the site search and use it as if it was a "one search" type of service. It also appears that despite making the site search link less prominent, users either don't find the catalogue to search or don't understand that the catalogue is where to search for collection items.

How the Site Search is currently being used

The National Library's site search application includes an option to view recent query logs for the Site Search facility. On average (during April/May) this query log contains approximately 1000 queries per working day, though fewer queries are made on weekends. The query logs include all of the NLA's site search collections (the whole site; indexes & databases; manuscript finding aids; apais thesaurus, etc.), but the majority of searches represented in the logs are conducted using the main NLA web site search form.

A high proportion of search queries appearing in the logs are subject or topic queries:

  • General interest subjects e.g. "ginseng", "Australian history"
  • Places and names e.g. "Cairns"; "Meryl Streep"; "Bill Hayden"
  • Current news themes e.g. "cloning"; "child abuse"; "refugees"
  • Known publications or documents - specific acts of legislation; journal or newspaper titles; books; articles
  • Topics that appear to be study topics for school projects, university subjects etc. - e.g. "blaxland, lawson and wentworth"; "1920's transport"; "history of education"

Only a small proportion of the searches are for documents or information that is available on our website e.g. "burke and wills"; "barton papers"; "ISSN"; "apais thesaurus". In one log analysed, this type of search applied to less than 25% of the queries.

Searching the website using the current Ultraseek (Inktomi) search engine

  • Full-text searching based on static web pages
  • Boolean searching is available if syntax is known; and there are other options to change how the search will work (e.g. search on metadata elements; or phrase search)
  • If two or more words are included in the query, the search will retrieve all pages that contain at least one of the words
  • Relevance ranking is used to "float" the most relevant page(s) to the top of the result set. NB this can"fail" if there are no pages on the website that include all of the search terms
    • For example (from search log of 10/4/2002):
      Time Hits Target Search query
      00:42:23 876 nlaweb carl james asimus
      00:44:14 140 nlaweb carl asimus
      00:44:56 0 nlaweb asimus
  • Conversely, users often try to reduce the number of hits by adding terms to the query thinking this will make the query more specific
    • For example (from search log of 11/4/2002):
      Time Hits Target Search query
      11:29:33 14 nlaweb CPI
      11:30:12 655 nlaweb CPI statistics

Users often make several attempts with their query by trying to narrow their search; by using synonyms or similar terms; or try the same search using other options available in the search form, so there are often a set of searches that are obviously from the same user and where it is apparent that they did not retrieve information relevant to their query. In one search log (10/4/2002), a user made up to 45 attempts to find information about the topic "delegated legislation"

Services currently using the site search facility include: Australian Dance Directory; Manuscript Finding Aids; Australian Libraries Gateway site search; PADI searches; Indexes and Databases search.

What might a "One Search" service look like?

  • Here is a set of mock-up search result screens based on a distributed searching model:
    • Burke and Wills
    • Australia in the Great Depression
    • Edmund Barton
    • Examiner
    • Genealogy
    • Robert Helpmann
    • Persistent Identifiers
  • Sample search queries for mock-up screens have been selected to illustrate the range of services that might be set up as search targets; and the screens show one way that multiple result sets could be indicated.
  • Search queries used for the mockups are either actual queries or are based on queries used in the site search and have been taken from recent site search query logs. The "hits" shown for each service were the actual number of hits for that search at the time of developing the page
  • There are also sample "No Hits" pages
    1. Search term with a spelling error (cidney)
    2. Long search query expressed as a phrase and with a number of quite specific terms included.
  • The "No hits" pages attempt to provide the user with some alternative strategies:
    • Re-do the search
    • Send their query to the Library via an online form
    • Contact the Library to make the enquiry

Issues

  • How "aligned" should broadcast searches be across the different target services? (including database services; and websites)
  • What type of search for each service should be used as the default search when a "One Search" query is activated? (Any word search?)
  • How many "targets" is it possible to search at one time?
  • Possible performance issues
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