Service providers and federated searching ...

A good federated collection is one that is accurately and consistently indexed and interoperable with other collections. I believe one of the biggest drawbacks in indexing huge collections is that very few fields will be interoperable. One way to combat that is to offer various search options to try to make up for the lowest common denominator shared by collections in a federated search.

Three service providers I examined are:
Scirus - searches more than 480 million science-related pages - harvests from some eprint repositories and some STEM publishers. A search for 'elk' retrieved 771,137 results including the accurate one elk (mammal) to Elk county to ELK as a biological pathway. The results were ordered nicely: by content provider, by file type, and subjects. Results can be ordered by relevance or date. A user has the ability to email, save, or export results. The interface and display of results is very similar to commercial products and thus in my opinion helps the user because familiarity can reduce anxiety during the search process.

NATIONAL SCIENCE DIGITAL LIBRARY -- NSDL - contains 153 unique collections of resources and over 2 million records (since sept 2008). A search for 'elk' retrieved 1020 results. The results were accurate and about elk (mammal) and ordered by K-12, Higher Ed & Research. The collection from which the item was retrieved is prominently displayed to the user. A small nuisance was that a few records returned errors and didn't display the item of interest. There is also a specialized search option where a user can run a more advanced search (i.e., by grade level, subject, and format.

BEN BiosciEdNet -- American Association for the Advancement of Science. This service is a "Pathway" for biological sciences education for NSDL. I was not able to determine what collections it draws from. A search for 'elk' retrieved only 4 matches. Various search modes are available: by subject, resource type, audience level, or advanced. Following one of the matches, I was taken to a page that required an account. As a user I am really discouraged and frustrated that a potential lead turns essentially into a dead end.

Cataloging consistency...

Cataloging an image collection is certainly difficult because some images don't have titles, subjects, etc and theoretically depending on the intended use images can be cataloged with iconologic terms (e.g., color, mood, expression, symbolism). For these reasons I am having a hard time consistently ordering my collection. Besides the fact that I am experimenting with submission and retrieval features of the technologies introduced so far, I think the lack of consistent cataloging practices is certainly of concern. I did some a quick search online and found out about an interesting issue in cataloging images - "concept-based" image retrieval and "content-based" image retrieval - hopefully I can dedicate some time during this semester to research this topic further. One thing that would help me is to catalog in writing my entire image collection (identify all the fields in advance) and use that consistently for the remainder of the course. I wonder whether a theoretical discussion about cataloging before experimentation with technologies would have been ideal to help us at least anticipate some of these issues in advance.

Installation of Drupal module of my choosing...

After reviewing the available modules under development for 6.x I decided to install the morelikethis module. It only took me about five minutes to find the download file name (found here http://drupal.org/node/316767). I followed the same command convention as given to us in the exercises. After entering the command one time, I got an error message. I looked closely but did not notice a typo. I almost got depressed and thought I had to go back and find another module but I decided to give it another try. As luck would have it, second try was the charm! (Could it have been a typo?#$% - well who cares it worked so moving on...) My next minor challenge was trying to configure it. I found some hints on the readme file (found here http://cvs.drupal.org/viewvc.py/drupal/contributions/modules/morelikethis/README.txt?view=markup&pathrev=DRUPAL-6--1). The challenge that I wasn't able to overcome was how this actually works after a search is conducted because I still don't have a search box on my Drupal site. I'm not going to let this go because I want to see how it works. I'll be back... : )

Pacing of tech assignments

I am only taking one course this semester. If it wasn't for the detailed installation/troubleshooting instructions I think many of us would be overwhelmed with questions and frustrated - so thanks for making that available for us! I'm excited to have a chance to play around with various technologies. The readings are appropriate but sometimes more than I'd like to undertake since I am a slow reader and find it hard to focus on the content. I'm still getting used to the pairing of two tracks into one course. I find the pace just right for my personal health because I can pace myself better during the week and have opportunities to spend time with friends and family unlike last semester.

Review of CMS article

The article I read from the special issue dedicated to content management systems in Library Hi Tech issue 1 2006 was Leveraging resources in a library gateway by Jerry V. Caswell. I selected this article because there is an invariable displeasure with the static webpage at my organization. The author described the use of guided search forms to aid users with access and advanced searching of resources. The argument he made was that our systems are too complicated for users and required a lengthy study for their effective use. Caswell advocated for simplification and mediation by libraries of these information systems.

He shared his organizations' strategic placement of guided search forms on subject guides. The forms, running JavaScript code, were preset to run a qualified search for the user. That is, advanced selections were preprogrammed so the user would directly enter a keyword and retrieve all relevant items (i.e., maps) for a specific task or assignment. Ironically, today my supervisor mentioned the availability of a new gadget which we intend to place in a course management system and preset appropriate qualified search parameters.

Another way the organization instituted guided search forms was by providing only two maximum search parameters: dropdown box at top and radio button selections on the bottom. The selections on the bottom were simply a teasing apart of some of the advanced features. Said search form allowed users to see all allowable limits in advance and run a more effective search.

The author also talked about a successful collaboration with the cataloguing department. Cataloguers added fields to bibliographic records to aid in the set-up of qualified searches.

I still had some lingering questions about the creation of the form, issues faced, decisions made, etc. Caswell shared a few web pages as examples that contained the guided search forms. However, when I accessed the sites I did not find any of these forms.

Discussion of digital collection

My initial plan was to borrow a subset of a real special collection from my employer but my query went unanswered. In lieu of that I decided that I did NOT want to work on a personal collection because I wanted to interact (i.e., ask questions) with a stakeholder and treat it as a dress rehearsal if you will. I am lucky to have a supportive husband that was very willing to share with me a subset of work images. The following is a description of my digital collection:

What is the collection: 15 images of various sizes in jpeg format
What is it about: animals specifically fish and wildlife
Who might access it: fish and wildlife researchers, game and fish employees, fish and wildlife employees, gamers, anglers, legislatures, educators
Terms to provide access: reptiles, large mammals, amphibians, fish, frog, eagle, elk, spikedace stoneroller, mexican grey wolf, flat horned lizard, golden eagle, bald eagle, black footed ferret

I would like to deviate from the systems and ontologies of yesterday and instead of the typical search interfaces I would like to experiment and replace it with cloud tags or icons.

MySQL

I am late completing this unit because of both personal and business factors. I began the work at home, then went out of town, and came back to the material. Issues with my vm also delayed my progress. I am not sure if this messed up my uptake of the material but boy was mySQL extremely difficult for me to understand especially privileges and left/right join syntax. The hard part for me was visualizing the tables and columns so that I could generate a statement. It was a lot of trial and error, going back through notes and online, so that I could create my homework statements. Although I was able to run the statements on my vm, it doesn't mean that they are correct. I would say that it's going to still take me a fair amount of time to fully understand mysql conceptually. Interesting stuff but not the kind of thing I would like to do in huge amounts on the job.