Jim,
The controlled vocabulary of library data is part of what makes the
search autocomplete work, in my opinion.
My example just uses the data from the cataloged records. I very much
like your suggestion that it follow the subject authorities when
offering suggestions. Michael Klein of BPL demonstrated a very good
authority-based subject autocomplete at a New England code4lib a few
months ago, and I've been hoping to implement something like that ever
since.
The difficulty so far is that few collections are as expansive as the
thesauri they draw their metadata from, and coordinating the authority
data with the actual contents of that collection is necessary to avoid
offering dead-end suggestions. That, and there aren't many sources of
electronic authority data.
--Casey
On Feb 19, 2009, at 9:31 AM, Weinheimer Jim wrote:
> I like this a lot. It seems even to work with authority files, so
> for example, if I enter chaikovskii it will give me: tchaikovsky,
> peter ilich, 1840-1893.
>
> When I enter "labor and laboring classes" I get two hits, when I
> should get "working class" and "labor movement" and maybe some items
> from the time before the heading changed. But that would be more
> sophisticated.
>
> Very nice!
>
> Jim Weinheimer
>
>> Casey Bisson wrote:
>> > The autocomplete that I implemented in Scriblio searches across
>> title,
>> > author, subject (and others), and suggests possible matches in
>> any of
>> > them. You can see it here:
>> >
>> > http://library.plymouth.edu/
>> >
>> > I've been skeptical of the value of autocomplete (there are a
>> number
>> > signs that suggest that it slows down the user experience or leads
>> > them to prematurely narrow their searches), but I've been
>> pleased at
>> > how it works against library data. I'm especially happy at how it
>> > allows users to begin a search without first having to select
>> which
>> > field to search.
>> >
>> > --Casey
>> >
>> > On Feb 18, 2009, at 12:31 PM, Mike Cunningham wrote:
>> >
>> >> I thought someone on this list might be interested in this. I now
>> >> have a proof of concept running on our staging port of an
>> >> autocomplete/live search feature for the opac. You may have
>> seen this
>> >> type of feature on sites like Amazon or Zip.ca. It comes back
>> with
>> >> different results depending on which search field the user
>> selects
>> >> (title, keyword, author, subject, call number). Since there is no
>> >> keyword index per se, keyword also uses the title index. The
>> feature
>> >> kicks in after the user has typed at least 3 characters.
>> >>
>> >> I'm curious if anyone knows of other library catalogues that do
>> >> something like this. Someone pointed out to me that
>> BiblioCommons has
>> >> a feature like this. Does anyone know of others?
>> >>
>> >> You can try it out here:
>> >>
>> >> http://search.cambridgelibraries.ca:2082/search
>> >>
>> >> There is some background info on the feature here:
>> >>
>> >> http://ex-libris.ca/?p=694
>> >>
>> >> Mike
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Mike Cunningham
>> >> Web Services Librarian
>> >> Cambridge Libraries
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>> --
>> -----------------------------------
>> Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
>> kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
>> ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet
>> fx.: 510-848-3913
>> mo.: 510-435-8234
>> ------------------------------------
Received on Thu Feb 19 2009 - 10:49:24 EST