Federated Search Research

I am going to try to get back into posting here more often.  My extended break was mainly the result of (1) starting a new federated search research project in March, and (2) becoming Interim Coordinator of my library’s IT department in May.

I am happy to report the successful outcome of my research project!  My article – “Federated Search and the Library Web Site: A Study of ARL Library Web Sites” – was accepted for publication in the Journal of Web Librarianship and should be published early next year.

Although I am working on two other research projects, I am hoping this short post will be the start of more frequent activity here.

Federated Searching Feedback Presentation

As chair of Milner Library’s Federated Search Committee, I have been heavily involved in the customization, implementation and assessment of Search It, Milner’s federated search engine.  It’s really been a great experience.  The committee spent about 5 months customizing Search It (January – June 2006).  Search It was implemented on June 5, 2006, and since then we’ve done two rounds of assessment – usability testing in August 2006 and focus groups in June & September 2007.

The feedback that we received from the assessment was so valuable and interesting!!  Thankfully, Angela Bonnell and I were able to share some of this information at the Internet Librarian 2007 Conference in Monterey, California on October 29.  Our presentation was titled Federated Searching Feedback from Usability Testing and Focus Groups … not as creative as what we proposed, but we were sharing the time slot with another presenter.  Check out the presentation … the statistics and quotes are fascinating … at least I think so. =)