MuseGlobal and Adhere Solutions recently announced a federated search extendor, the All Access Connector, for the Google Search Appliance and Google Mini. Sol at Federated Search Blog raises some good questions about how relevancy is calculated for search results. One point is that Google’s PageRank probably won’t fare well in the enterprise. He says it this way in a previous post:
…the popular search engines perform full text searches of unstructured text but enterprise content is much more structured than content in the Internet at large, it often contains fielded data in databases, and it is often hierarchically organized. Federated search vendors that want to sell into the enterprise need to consider this important difference.
True. However, Google isn’t new to enterprise search and they’re quick to point out that the algorithms they use for web content aren’t the same as for the GSA. Nevertheless, I am curious to know if it’s Google or MuseGlobal doing the relevancy math.
Sol also makes an interesting prediction about the impact the product will have on the market:
For better or worse, I think this offering will get many potential customers to view federated search as a commodity. Thus, it will force the high-end federated search vendors to work even harder than they do now to differentiate themselves from their low-end competitors. I can see it now: prospective customers will start using Google as a reference for product comparisons and will expect vendors to provide cheap and simple solutions.
My information, including an article at Information Today, says the AAC will run, in most cases, at least $50,000 plus over two years. That’s in addition to the cost of the Google appliance. I’m not sure which competitors or price tags Sol considers low-end in the federated search space. I wouldn’t consider this low-end. In my experience, such a price point might actually hit a sweet spot where only a couple of vendors exist now, especially for organizations that have already invested in Google search.
May 23rd, 2008
Recently, a Medlib-er asked for examples of how medical librarians were using Microsoft Sharepoint. The majority of respondants said they had created sites or pages for their library in Sharepoint, duplicating the usual stuff found on library web sites: ILL forms, links to the public catalog, and other sites - essentially reconstructing the library’s public web site in the Intranet, or even just linking to it.
I don’t mean to disparage the efforts of my cohort. Hospital and corporate librarians tend to be lone rangers with little time, resources, and permission to push the envelope. At least they did something. I’m convinced, though, that we can do better than that.
At the academic medical campus where I work, we’ve had a (non-Sharepoint) staff and student portal for some time. The library has worked closely with developers to incorporate some library services into the portal. From my brief experience, though, University staff only pay attention to the portal every two weeks when it’s time to print their timesheets. Students visit maybe a little more frequently to check their campus accounts. Ultimately, though, there’s no reason for anyone to visit the portal in order to get work done.
Sharepoint, as collaboration space, I hope will be different. My goal is to insert library services into the flow of work and study. Not in a “hey, look at us” or “eat your spinach” kind of way, but invisibly and naturally. I’ve spent a little time envisioning how we might accomplish that. I hope to spend a lot more time over the next year.
Here are my early thoughts:
Identify the stages and flow of research, work, and study on campus that might take place in Sharepoint.
Find areas where there’s been an observable, neglected need and suggest how the library might help, eg. metadata, text analysis, categorization, training.
Build small, modular web parts, connectors, and widgets that faculty, staff, and students can include in their own spaces.
Don’t make people come to the Library’s Sharepoint site to do something.
Don’t waste time recreating the Library’s web site in Sharepoint.
Don’t just link to the web site.
Share openly.
I got some serendipitous affirmation and inspiration today while following up on a medical student’s request. Upon entering med school, our medical students receive digital versions of recommended textbooks. This student wanted to know, reasonably enough, if there was an add-on for incorporating Stedman’s Medical Dictionary (which he already owned in digital copy) into Microsoft Word or, even better, OneNote - a popular tablet pc notetaking application among our students [1].
While searching for available options, I ran across a presentation by Carl Nolan, head of the medical research services project involving Microsoft and NHS. Here’s an excerpt from an article by Microsoft:
Microsoft has invested £40 million in the Common User Interface programme - a series of projects to help the NHS get the most out of its IT investment. One of these projects has been looking for ways to build medical research services into the software that NHS staff already use every day.
These are exactly the kinds of services I would like to see us implement at KUMC. I hope they’re sharing.
Note: What I ultimately found was that for $100 you can buy the Stedman’s Medical Spellchecker which adds a custom dictionary to MS Office apps. But that’s only spellchecking. What if I want to look up the definition of a new term? Ideally, I’d want the spellchecking dictionary feature wrapped into a single service-package with the full dictionary available in the Research Services Task Pane. Instead, both Microsoft and LWW make seem to make that impossible.
January 30th, 2008
The 2007 Horizon Report has been released by the New Media Consortium .
The annual Horizon Report describes the continuing work of the NMC’s Horizon Project, a research-oriented effort that seeks to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, or creative expression within higher education….
The core of the report describes six areas of emerging technology that will impact higher education within three adoption horizons over the next one to five years. To identify these areas, the project draws on an ongoing conversation among knowledgeable persons in the fields of business, industry, and education; on published resources, current research and practice; and on the expertise of the NMC and ELI communities….
Learn more about the Horizon Project and contribute to future editions at http://horizon.nmc.org/wiki/Main_Page. NMC is a community of hundreds of leading universities, colleges, museums, and research centers exploring the use of media and emerging technologies in higher education.
December 15th, 2007
I continue to be inspired by WPopac, Corey Bisson’s reformulation of the library catalog using WordPress. Corey calls WPopac “an OPAC 2.0 Testbed”. In this case, WordPress is just the means of bringing the library catalog into the 21st Century, with open standards and flexible interfaces.
I first learned about WPopac at Corey’s IUG Presentation, “Designing An OPAC for Web 2.0“. As a satisfied new user of WordPress, I was already convinced that somehow it might be a great tool for the library. I certainly wasn’t the first to wonder how and Corey’s work wrapped some flesh around it.
You can experience WPopac at Plymouth State, Corey’s place, and there are more implementations to come.
Who needs WebOPAC software for our catalogs as long as we have access to our data and open source apps like WordPress or Joomla!? The answer, of course, is those of us who are locked into turnkey systems that build walls around our data and then force us to pay for still more software in order to stick some doors into the walls. Change is in the air though, especially as librarians increasingly take to the Web 2.0 meme and begin to expect more from their systems.
August 5th, 2006
The June 19 issue of Businessweek introduces a great new section called in, Inside Innovation that features leading innovators, trends, stats, and case studies. In this issue, they profile 5 “Champions of Innovation”. One of the innovators profiled is Marissa Mayer, Google’s Vice-President for Search Products and User Experience. From Marissa’s 9 Notions of Innovation:
- Ideas come from everywhere
- Share everything you can
- You’re brilliant, we’re hiring
- A license to pursue dreams
- Innovation, not instant perfection
June 16th, 2006