I also have a little project I've been thinking about for a while now
involving a browser plug-in. It would try to intercept searches sent to
Google, and give a pop-up with info on possible library resources. It's
still in development, but what I envision is to capture Google searches in
our public labs and send them to this application, that uses the library
catalog as a keyword index that leads to the appropriate subject guides. We
don't have indexed LibGuides, so this would serve in that role, plus it
would possibly translate more granular search phrases into the more general
topic areas that our subject guides cover. Or at least it offers a pop-up
that advertises the materials the library pays for.
What it does is: a keyword search on the search phrase in the library
catalog;
sorts the call-number ranges of the results from
that search;
consults a mapping of call-number ranges to subject
guides;
presents the user with those possible subject guide
links.
The problems now:
- It's based on III's Z39.50 server, which appears to have a big flaw
(that III says is corrected in the next release which we will load in
June).
- It takes a while to retrieve and process the Z39.50 results
- it's ASP .NET VB - I don't think that's a problem, but I need to
learn/convert to AJAX to simplify the processing of the responses to the
survey at the end.
- will I even get approval to collect the info on users' Google searches
for this experimental use?
- oh, yes, I have a little CSS problem I haven't fixed yet.
But you can try it and see what you think:
http://lisv06.colgate.edu/aftergoogle/default.aspx?searchargs=mathematics+assessment
Cindy Harper, Systems Librarian
Colgate University Libraries
charper_at_colgate.edu
315-228-7363
Received on Mon May 24 2010 - 16:13:18 EDT