Update: Fixed mock-up link and it includes rating now

There's a saying in usability that if the user can't find it, then it doesn't exist. The information someone is looking for is probably there, but if there are roadblocks in allowing them to find it, then it might as well not be.

There was recently a response about my Google Scholar post. I agree is could use some work. My example only links to a couple of the library resources. It could be used to promote many more. I put in the few I'm familiar with. Obviously it would also be good to link to the Research Guides my library has and probably some things I don't know about.

The second point, that meta-search will never be as useful as an integrated search (scholar, etc.) is correct in some sense, in my opinion, but wrong in others. It is difficult to integrate disparate systems into a single system and still get good results. Most people I know usually search one or two of the major indexes and give up after that, because they either don't know where else to look or get tired of getting to the different resources. While a meta-search product won't be as fast as a scholar like service, it will drop many of the barriers users currently face when doing research. I usually avoid online indexes and journals till I find citations or other things in off-line forms, just because the search is so terrible. For books I usually try to find one or two and then browse nearby call numbers in person, because the search results are so disappointing. My research buddies loathe using the online catalog.

Leaving meta-search to another discussion, I want to move on to what I see as the largest problem (in catalog searches at least): The lack of rich metadata in the library records. While there are all the basics of describing the book, there is little information that would be useful to someone looking for the book. They either need to know the title, subject or some choice keywords chosen by the bibliographers. I've already ran into some cases where I was told that they changed how they labeled the format over the years so whatever media I choose won't return all relevant results.

This brings me to what I think is one of the main strengths of Google Scholar, and that is that it has access to abstracts and full-text in it's database. Projects such as Textpresso, found that having full-text increased the relevance of results greatly. Ignoring the interface problems, I think the search would be greatly enhanced by having the increase in data to work with. There is currently a project at the Library of Congress called BEAT which seems to have similar goals. Some of the library records at MSU are slowly getting the table of contents, but many I still have to go by the title alone. A small description of the book, even from the publisher, would be a huge benefit. Sometimes I pop over to amazon.com or search the web and see what people are citing.

As an example I threw together a mock-up that pulls in amazon.com data. This obviously doesn't help with the search side of things, as it's not in the record. A library might be able to partner with them, though, and get the data. View the Example.

Art just posted about using Desktop Google to search library records. I think this is an interesting idea, but I think it could fail for the same reasons. No matter what search engine you have, you can only search what data you have. If all you have is the title, author and some keywords, then Google won't do much better than any other solution. If the records contain abstracts and table of contents, then the results will become much more usable.

Online journals and indexes don't have this problem as they usually have access to at least the abstracts. So I guess what I'm getting at is that maybe meta-search isn't a good option like Jim Cambell suggests. Perhaps a better option would be to work on fixing the current search system so that it's actually a useful tool. It seems like it's every day that I run into a new problem with my library's catalog search (Innovative Millenium OPAC, I believe). I shouldn't have to fight to get a book