We implemented AquaBrowser last summer. http://boss.library.okstate.edu
<http://boss.library.okstate.edu/> We were astounded at the number of
"variant spellings" that appeared the Word Cloud, and initially thought
that our catalogers would be deluged with requests to make corrections
in our records. As we investigated further we realized that a lot of
the spelling variants are legitimate spellings that in our case come
largely from two sources: 1) the ~90,000 records for Early English
Books online; and 2) the SyndeticsICE searchable tables of contents.
My favorite example is "McShakespeare", which appears in the Word Cloud
if you do a search for "Shakespeare". "McShakespeare" comes from the
ToC for Screening Shakespeare in the twenty-first century / edited by
Mark Thornton Burnett and Ramona Wray. Here's the ToC. "McShakespeare"
appears in the Chapter 9 title.
Table of Contents
1 'If I'm right' : Michael Wood's In search of Shakespeare
Richard Dutton
13
2 'I see my father' in 'my mind's eye' : surveillance and the filmic
Hamlet
Mark Thornton Burnett
31
3 Backstage pass(ing) : Stage Beauty, Othello and the make-up of race
Richard Burt
53
4 The postnostalgic Renaissance : the 'place' of Liverpool in Don
Boyd's My kingdom
Courtney Lehmann
72
5 Our Shakespeares : British television and the strains of
multiculturalism
Susanne GreenhalghRobert Shaughnessy
90
6 Looking for shylock : Stephen Greenblatt, Michael Radford and Al
Pacino
Samuel Crowl
113
7 Speaking Maori Shakespeare : the Maori Merchant of Venice and the
legacy of colonisation
Chatherine Silverstone
127
8 'Into a thousand parts divide one man' : dehumanised metafiction and
fragmented documentary in Peter Babakitis' Henry V
Sarah Hatchuel
146
9 Screening the McShakespeare in post-millennial Shakespeare cinema
Carolyn Jess-Cooke
163
10 Shakespeare and the singletons, or, Beatrice meets Bridget Jones :
post-feminism, popular culture and 'Shakespea(re)-told'
Ramona Wray
185
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell Book Services and R R Bowker LLC
(c) 2007.
Anne Prestamo
Associate Dean for Collection and Technology Services
216 Library
Oklahoma State University Library
Stillwater, OK 74078-1071
Phone: 405-744-9755 FAX: 405-744-7579
Email: anne.prestamo_at_okstate.edu
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Ross Singer
Sent: Friday, December 21, 2007 8:44 AM
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Aqua Browser in beta at U. Chicago
While I've never particularly liked the visual display from
AquaBrowser (or, similarly, Grokker), one thing I found interesting
was, through the spelling variation feature, how many /misspellings/
were in the search result data. If UChicago were to then set up a
policy to fix typos when they find them, this is actually a really
useful feature for maintaining data integrity (and shaming the library
by pointing out stupid typos until the data is fixed).
-Ross.
On Dec 21, 2007 4:55 AM, Stephens, Owen <o.stephens_at_imperial.ac.uk>
wrote:
> I also have some doubts about the usefulness of the visual browser
(aka
> word cloud), but I think that probably U. Chicago would acknowledge
the
> mixed feelings about this, based on the study they did on AquaBrowser
> (http://califa.org/uploadfiles/report_%20final_%202006_10_03.pdf)
>
> "The word cloud elicited the most mixed responses. Although several
> subjects used the
> word cloud to eventually identify new materials, few felt they
> understood how it worked.
> Despite finding it confusing, some subjects found it compelling enough
> to want to
> continue to experiment with it. Our study indicates that the
suggestion
> of related terms to
> users can help them find new materials, and that if not all terms in
the
> word cloud were
> relevant, holding the user's interest in these alternate possibilities
> may be important."
>
> I also think that focussing on the word cloud (although as the report
> says - the word cloud unsuprisingly attracts attention) detracts from
> the rest of the product, which, as far as I can see, is doing much of
> what other products in this space are doing or trying to do:
>
> Faceted browsing
> Relevance ranking
> RSS feeds of results
>
> I'm not clear from Nancy's criticism whether she simply disliked the
> word cloud, and this, for her, over-rode any other positives, or
whether
> she felt that the implementation of these NGC type features was
> particularly weak in AquaBrowser compared to other systems out there
> (and if so, it would be good to explore which are the strongest
> implementations and how do they differ)
>
> Note that the word cloud can be 'closed' so that the user doesn't need
> to see it, but you then lose all the functionality that has been put
> into the word cloud, which includes the spelling alternatives - I
think
> this is probably a mistake, and it would be nice to have the spelling
> suggestions as text as well as in the visual display (my instinct is
> that pulling out the spelling function from the cloud would make the
> cloud more useful (less clutter), and the spelling alternatives more
> obvious)
>
> Overall I like the implementation, and I applaud U Chicago both for
> trying something different, and doing it relatively well. However, I
do
> have some (hopefully constructive) criticism.
>
> Firstly, when I clicked through to the 'more' on the Author facets, I
> found it frustrating that the default sort order was relevance rather
> than alphabetical. I feel that once a user has clicked 'more' here,
then
> they are likely to be going be looking for someone specific (why else
> click on the author facet?) and so alphabetical listing will make that
> easier to navigate.
>
> Secondly, when I click through to the Author facets, I still don't get
> the chance to see all the authors connected to my search, so if the
> person I'm looking for hasn't written much, I may go away thinking
that
> the library hasn't got anything by them.
>
> To take a slightly contrived example:
>
> I'm looking for books by Alfred Emerson (a Professor of Zoology at U
> Chicago) - I rather naively search for 'Emerson'. Unsuprisingly a lot
of
> the hits are about/by RW Emerson. The author facet lists 5 authors,
none
> of whom are Alfred Emerson, but I see that there are '3882 more', and
> click through. I find what seems to be a randomly ordered list of
> authors (most of whom are even 'Emerson', nevermind 'Alfred Emerson' -
> it takes me a few moments to realise they are listed by the number of
> items related to them, and slighly longer to find the 'alphabet' sort
> option. After re-sorting, I find that there is still no 'Emerson,
> Alfred' listed. I find the 'and more - not shown' note, but there are
no
> options to see the 'not shown' hits.
>
> OK - so if I search for 'alfred emerson' in the first place, I find
the
> right stuff, and perhaps the example is bogus - but in the end it bugs
> me that I can't see all the authors related to my search results - why
> not, if that's what I want to do?
>
> Going back to the 'sort alphabetical' vs 'sort relevance' - it would
be
> nice if it remembered my preference on a facet by facet basis - each
> time I go back to the author facet I have to resort alphabetically (in
> the above example, if I narrow my search by LCSH facet of 'Q -
Science',
> then go back to the 'Author' facet to find Alfred, then he is in
there,
> but the facet has resorted by relevance, and so he isn't easy to spot
.
>
> Happy Christmas to all...
>
> Owen
>
> Owen Stephens
> Assistant Director: e-Strategy and Information Resources
> Imperial College London Library
> Imperial College London
> South Kensington
> London SW7 2AZ
>
>
> Tel: 020 7594 8829
> Email: o.stephens_at_imperial.ac.uk
>
Received on Fri Dec 21 2007 - 10:10:07 EST