Why I Hope ENCompass Continues to Fail

WHY I HOPE CONTINUES TO “FAIL”

Alan ManifoldSystems Implementation ManagerPurdue University LibrariesWest Lafayette, Indianamanifold@purdue.edu

Session 82

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThis presentation would not have been possible without the contributions of:

Stolen logos, plus the products we live by.

Especially the ENCompass Gateway Team, which designed the interface I will show you.

I CONTEND

ENCompass is a completely different kind of system than Voyager. The criteria we apply to judging the success of Voyager don’t work with ENCompass. It was created to “push the envelope” of library technology and it’s doing that. One consequence is that parts of it fail.

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A QUICK LOOK AT

Click here for

online

Click here toskip PowerPointoverview slides

Click here ifonline demodoesn’t work

Click here tosee if MetaLibworks better

Ha! Ha! That’s a good one!

Like that’s ever going to happen!

GO BACK(to reality)

x

QUICK SEARCH

SEARCHING…

RESULTS SUMMARY

RESULTS DISPLAY

FULL RECORD DISPLAY

VIEW FULL TEXT

SEARCH DATABASE DIRECTLY

MegaSearch Databases by Title

MegaSearch Databases by Subject

All Databases by Subject

All Databases by Title

SEARCH HISTORY

SAVED SEARCHES

SAVED RECORDS

SYSADMIN CLIENT

Z39.50 CONNECTOR

RELATIONSHIP MANAGER

WHAT IS ALL ABOUT

Database organizationFederated searchingDirect database connectionXML mappingResults displayLinking all aroundDigital collectionsLinkFinderPlus

True to its name, ENCompass does lots of things.

ENCompass for Digital Collections has more in common with Voyager than ENCompass for Resource Access does. It is like an online digital library.

Images Print, etc.Storage &Retrieval

Metadata CatalogingCreation &Editing

EDC vs. VOYAGER

ERA vs. VOYAGER

Access Inventory trackingTrolling FindingDiscoverers Investigators

Purpose:Uses:

Users:

ENCompass for Resource Access differs from Voyager in lots of significant ways. It’s not designed for finding known items, but for discovering unknown resources.

CONNECTORSFederated Searching is built on the concept of connectors. ENCompass supports four kinds:

Voyager Z39.50 XML Gateways HSE Connectors

Howstandard?

Howfamiliar toEndeavor?

Howreliable?

MISSION:DIFFICULTExtract Bibliographic Info from:

Books you published

Books others published

Journalarticles in non-Roman scripts

Newspaperarticles

MISSON:IMPOSSIBLEThe further away we get from books and journal articles, the harder it is to extract titles, authors, pagination, etc.

Websites

Dictionaryentries

Maps

Musical scores

Patents

HSE CONNECTORSHSE Connectors have a similar mission: extract specific data fields whether they are there or not.

American National Biography

METADEX

Associations Unlimited

Funding Opportunities

Accunet/AP Photo Archive

AltaVista

HSE CONNECTORS FAILHSE Connectors do their work by emulating a web user. They connect to web pages, read the HTML and try to interpret what they read. And some

programmer has to tell them how.You’d fail, too, if you had to do it.

THEY SHOULDN’T KEEP FAILING!Hopes:Z39.50 connections will get more

standard, broader and more robustXML Gateways will become more

common and more standardMore databases will support Z39.50, XML

Gateways or some future protocol“Backend portals” will become more

common (cleaner access for HSE Connectors)

HSE Connectors will be fixed and improved, and the technology will get better

NEW CHALLENGES AHEAD

VideoPartnering with Virage

ImagesPartnering with Luna

Course Management Systems integrationPartnering with Blackboard and WebCT

MORE CHALLENGES COMING

AudioRecommender SystemsReputation ManagementAuthorization IssuesPersonally Contoured SearchingNumerical DataNon-textual Data (e.g. maps, genomes,

chemical compounds)Digital Rights ManagementInstitutional Repositories

AND THE HORIZON IS ENDLESS

Aromatherapy SystemsDirect Image Searching (pattern recognition)Interfaces with tools and appliancesHolographic Image SearchingMedical Device InterfacesData MiningWebcam image scanning

South Australia’s Nullarbor Plains

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