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This article was downloaded by: [York University Libraries]On: 11 November 2014, At: 12:50Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
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KCResearch: Creating Research Portal Using OpenSource TechnologyDavid King a , Jessica Kopecky Tipton b & Heather Hill ca Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library , Topeka , KS E-mail:b Rockhurst High School , Kansas City , MO E-mail:c Sturgeon , MO E-mail:Published online: 12 Oct 2012.
To cite this article: David King , Jessica Kopecky Tipton & Heather Hill (2005) KCResearch: Creating Research Portal UsingOpen Source Technology, Public Library Quarterly, 24:3, 63-73, DOI: 10.1300/J118v24n03_06
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J118v24n03_06
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KCResearch: Creating a Research PortalUsing Open Source Technology
David KingJessica Kopecky Tipton
Heather Hill
ABSTRACT. This article is a case study of how a public library team canmove research created by community groups, non-profit organizations, andeven college and university groups that might traditionally be held ashard-to-find ephemera into relatively easy-to-find research documents.In the KCResearch project, the team used open-source software providedto create accessible storage and searchability for that valuable local re-search. This article describes the KCResearch project: where and whyit was created, funding for the project, technology behind the project,and future goals and direction for the project. doi:10.1300/J118v24n03_06[Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Ser-vice: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <[email protected]>Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc.All rights reserved.]
KEYWORDS. Database creation, open source software, local historyarea studies, Kansas City Public Library, KCResearch, ephemera access
David King is Digital Branch & Services Manager, Topeka & Shawnee CountyPublic Library, Topeka, KS (E-mail: [email protected]).
Jessica Kopecky Tipton is Librarian, Rockhurst High School, Kansas City, MO(E-mail: [email protected]).
Heather Hill is located in Sturgeon, MO (E-mail: [email protected]).
Public Library Quarterly, Vol. 24(3) 2005Available online at http://plq.haworthpress.com
© 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1300/J118v24n03_06 63
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A researcher enters your library and heads to the reference desk. Shevaguely remembers a study done a few years ago by a local nonprofitcommunity organization that has just the information needed to com-plete her research project, and she wants you to help her find it. Your re-sponse? “Yes, I remember the study you’re talking about. That wasdone a few years ago, right? I wonder if it’s still available . . . I think it’sboxed up in storage somewhere . . . and I’m not sure where.” What a dis-appointing response that would be.
Unfortunately, there is useful research created by community groups,non-profit organizations, and even college and university groups that neverreaches the hands of interested researchers. Once completed, the researchis finalized and stored–stuffed in a box, left on a server, or simply forgot-ten. However, it’s still useful information, just waiting to be rediscovered.
Consider, for example, the Kansas City metropolitan area–rich inworld-class research and information. Within the metro area alone, thereare 15 traditional 4-year colleges and universities, 61 community colleges,5 theological colleges, and 3 medical schools. In addition to the stagger-ing amounts of research conducted within the walls of these educationcenters, Kansas City houses many non-profit and private research facilitiesthat focus on various topics such as community issues, life sciences,pharmaceuticals, and technology.
The challenge is that all of this research exists in myriad locations: onlocal intranets, on the Web, and in paper files. The material that is alreadyavailable online is often buried in different sections of an organization’sWebsite, or tucked into a database, unavailable to any passing searchengine. Because this research exists in a variety of locations, it is not eas-ily accessible.
The goal of the KCResearch project is to provide accessible storageand searchability for that valuable local research. This article describesthe KCResearch project: where and why was it created, funding for theproject, technology behind the project, and future goals and directionfor the project.
BACKGROUND OF THE KCRESEARCH PROJECT
The idea of KCResearch began on June 29, 2001, when the EwingMarion Kauffman Foundation hosted a forum for area researchers inter-ested in growth and development issues in metropolitan Kansas City.One of the topics discussed at that meeting was the amount of researchbeing completed on metropolitan area topics. Forum participants noted
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the great amount of research being done and the difficulty in accessingthe research after the initial publicity about it. Some of the issues dis-cussed were as follows:
• Much research is being done, but there was no single place to searchfor it.
• Research is published in a variety of formats, some online, some inbrochure or white paper formats, and some not published at all(other than in a Microsoft Word or Excel document).
• There is no guarantee that the research is being archived for fu-ture use.
Because of these issues, the forum attendees recommended the de-velopment of a Web-based research portal that would serve as a singlepoint of entry for research about the Kansas City metropolitan area.
A group of the forum participants decided to meet this challenge andformed a collaborative consortium with the goal of creating the KCRe-search database. The consortium is currently made up of the EwingMarion Kauffman Foundation, Kansas City Public Library, the Mid-America Regional Council (MARC), the Department of Public Admin-istration at the University of Kansas, The University Libraries at theUniversity of Missouri at Kansas City (UMKC), The Center for the Cityat UMKC, and the Henry W. Bloch School of Business and Public Ad-ministration at UMKC.
Kansas City Public Library expressed an interest in supporting the de-velopment of the KCResearch portal. The library system’s InformationTechnology department already had many of the necessary capabilitiesfor creating and maintaining a database-driven Web search engine andportal, and this project falls in line with library programs currently underdevelopment. Thus, the Kansas City Public Library agreed to become thefiscal agent representing the partnership and to take the lead in creating anup-to-date access mechanism for accessing KC research studies.
WHAT IS KCRESEARCH?
KCResearch is a gateway to research related to the Kansas City area.The mission of the KCResearch project is to facilitate research and analy-sis of regional information for researchers, government, policymakers,and the general population by providing a searchable Web portal thatidentifies, collects, categorizes, and provides access to community andacademic research related to the Kansas City regional area. The early
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stages of this project have a two-fold purpose, to provide a wealth ofquality, regional information to users and to provide a platform for locallyfocused research.
The subject areas covered are broad and include information and re-search from the project partners as well as information on topics such asdowntown development, education, environmental issues, and trans-portation. Formats for research accessed within the portal include bothpublished and nonpublished material about the Kansas City region.This also includes research that relates to, supplements, or highlightstopics contained in the repository, but is not specifically about KansasCity. Major research projects of national or global significance con-ducted in the Kansas City region will also be represented.
Research found using KCResearch comes from a variety of sources,such as higher education institutions in the Kansas City region, govern-mental agencies, non-profit organizations, foundations, community orga-nizations, public and private research organizations, individual researchers,and public and private companies.
There are three levels of materials collected in KCResearch:
1. Scholarly/academic research2. Community research3. Student research
Included in scholarly/academic research are materials published by anacademic or comparable research institution, materials written by a fac-ulty member of an academic institution, academic or research institu-tion sponsored research (sponsored either financially or with facilitiesand time), medical research, doctoral student dissertations and theses.Community research includes materials published by community andnon-profit agencies. It also includes high-quality research about the Kan-sas City regional area done by individuals not connected with a specificorganization. Student research includes quality university and collegestudent papers.
Current and historical materials will be included in the collection.Historical materials should be a research study, not just the history ofthe city and its people. Materials donated focused on the history of Kan-sas City will be sent to Missouri Valley Special Collections, the specialcollections department for the Kansas City Public Library, for consider-ation for inclusion in the institution’s local history collections.
The KCResearch project includes 18 counties, 8 from Kansas and 10from Missouri. These counties are all part of OneKC (www.thinkonekc.com), a regional unity campaign. The counties included are as follows:
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In Kansas: Atchison, Douglas, Franklin, Johnson, Leavenworth,Miami, Shawnee, and Wyandotte
In Missouri: Buchanan, Cass, Clay, Clinton, Jackson, Johnson,Lafayette, Livingston, Platte, and Ray
This grouping of counties extends beyond the counties included inthe U.S. Census’s definition of the Kansas City, MO-KS MetropolitanStatistical Area. The KCResearch Project Partners decided to expand thearea for the purpose of partnering with the Kansas City Area Develop-ment Council’s (KCADC) OneKC campaign and gain early recognitionand support for the project. Also, because of this decision, KCADC vol-unteered to design project logos, connecting KCResearch to the campaign.
Materials are added to the KCResearch collection in one of two ways.The preferred means of providing access to a document is through a linkfrom KCResearch to the organization’s Website. Items will be archivedif they are not already online or, in special cases, to maintain a docu-ment’s availability. KCResearch staff will either archive the documentif it already exists in digital form, or digitize and archive a nondigitaldocument on the portal server. This method will be used if no other stablearchive options are available.
Project librarians go through a number of different methods to find ma-terial to be added to the repository. The KCResearch project staff exam-ines content on the Web by using search engines and by browsing localcommunity organization and academic Websites. Project staff also dis-cover content through partner organizations, groups requesting inclusionof research, and local news reports of research done in Kansas City andabout the Kansas City region. In future, content will also be discoveredthrough virtual library crawlers included in the iVia open source softwareused for the project and connections with other repositories in the region.
An individual database entry is created for each item that is includedin the repository. Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, Version 1.1 is usedto describe and catalog items. Some of the data entry is done automati-cally through iVia, thus making addition of items to the repository a muchsimpler task. Project staff manually checks every record and adds addi-tional keywords and Library of Congress subject headings before ap-proving the item for inclusion in the live database.
In future, project staff hope to have partners more involved in initialdata entry and in adding metatags to their existing Web pages and data-bases of research information. That will allow items to be catalogedmuch more quickly and smoothly.
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The goal for KCResearch is to create full-text access for all documentsrepresented in the database. However, that may not be possible for ev-ery item owing to copyright restrictions, the item not being availableonline, or author restrictions. These records will be represented in thedatabase with an abstract of the document. Access information for thefull-text document will also be provided.
Full metadata for restricted documents will be added to the databaseonly if the item is deemed to be of high importance and is about eitherKansas City or from project partners, local universities and colleges, orlocal and state community or government organizations. Other itemsmay be included if they are useful to a major part of the general publicand to other researchers in the Kansas City region.
UNIQUENESS OF THE KCRESEARCH PROJECT
The KCResearch project is unique among digital repositories andportals for a number of reasons. Rather than just being centered at a uni-versity or a state organization, this project encompasses the entire Kan-sas City region. A wide variety of organizations are collaborating tomake the project a success. Although the project is housed at a public li-brary, there are many other library and nonlibrary organizations in-volved. These include a local academic library, university academicdepartments, community organizations, and city government.
Because of this, there are numerous types of research that will be in-cluded in KCResearch. Research found in the portal originates fromacademic institutions, community groups, the government, private com-panies, and many other resources; the project houses a wide assortmentof research relevant to a variety of users.
FUNDING AND SET-UP OF KCRESEARCH
The KCResearch project is made possible by a grant from the EwingMarion Kauffman Foundation. The 3-year grant of $433,582 allowedthe project to fund two positions for 3 years, to purchase a server for theWeb-based database and portal, software to run the database, two com-puters for the two positions, and to create marketing and promotionalmaterials for the project.
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Personnel play a big part in the creation and operation of the KCRe-search project. Along with the two Kaufmann Foundation-funded staff,KCResearch has a project advisory group and a project managementgroup.
The two positions funded by the grant have been filled in this way:
1. Repository Content Developer: The person in this position fo-cuses on the technical aspects of the project. She is in charge of theproject Website and database, working with database vendors,and doing Web searches for content. This person also makes surecontent is placed in the appropriate place in the database.
2. KCResearch Librarian: The person in this position calls and meetswith potential research providers, meets with researchers, andgives presentations about the project. She also adds items to thedatabase, creates the collection development policy, catalogingstandards, and other standards for the project and writes progressreports. She is in charge of correctly cataloging each database rec-ord and creating a thesaurus of terminology for the database.
The Project Advisory Group is a steering committee for the project,comprising people from the project partners listed earlier. This groupmeets once a month to decide on direction and goals for the project.They review written evaluation/progress reports and discuss with proj-ect staff the status and direction of the project. They also provide inputfor the strategic management of the project.
The Project Management Group, which also meets on a monthly ba-sis, comprises library staff, and includes the Director of Reference Ser-vices, the Manager of Special Collections, the Deputy Director ofSupport Services, the Web and Project Manager and, of course, the proj-ect staff. This team manages the project, making sure that activities arecarried out in a timely manner and that all criteria and standards createdby the Advisory Group are met.
MARKETING
The KCResearch team is making the dream of a Web-based database,with great research about Kansas City, into a reality. At the same time,the team is working to ensure that the project runs smoothly after the3-year grant. A marketing plan is being developed to help identify targetmarkets, to recommend the most effective means of marketing to those
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target markets, and to create incentives for researchers to visit, use, andsubmit content to KCResearch.
To assist in the promotion of the Web portal, promotional brochureswill be developed to assist in showing the value of KCResearch to aca-demic and nonacademic researchers and to community stakeholders(i.e., local chambers of commerce, community and city planners, andcommunity organizations).
Strategic marketing efforts and utilization of traditional print andelectronic communication channels will be used to promote KCRe-search. For instance, information about KCResearch will be printed inKansas City Public Library’s newsletters, which are sent to over 10,000people. Also, project partners will be encouraged to promote KCRe-search through their organization’s newsletters. Press releases to the lo-cal media are planned to highlight the benefits of KCResearch.
TECHNOLOGY FOR KCRESEARCH
After researching a variety of different portal and repository prod-ucts, project staff chose to use the iVia portal software (ivia.ucr.edu).iVia is a portal developed by the creators of the Infomine virtual library(infomine.ucr.edu). It is an open source portal created by librarians fromthe University of California, Riverside. Because it was created as a library-like system, iVia fit the KCResearch project better than any other software.Out of the box, iVia contained many of the features needed for KCRe-search, including a powerful and easy-to-use search engine and the abil-ity to create, organize, and store detailed records. iVia utilizes detailedcataloging and searching resources in a manner that allows easy recordcreation by the KCResearch editors and easy searching for the user.
The task of collecting, organizing, and cataloging resources is sup-plemented by a couple of different programs in the iVia portal. Alongwith manual searching for relevant records on different Websites by theKCResearch staff, iVia automatically harvests relevant data.
There are three ways that iVia harvests data. The first is an ex-pert-guided crawler that works well for organizations that have a largeamount of relevant research on their Websites. The crawler is providedwith the top-level Web page of a Website. The depth (how far down intothe Website to go and how far out from the site the crawler should fol-low links) and the types of documents to find are set, and then thecrawler begins crawling the Web. The crawler works in the background
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and once it is finished it provides a summary page with all the links itfound using the pre-defined search specifications.
KCResearch staff perform preliminary selection at this point bychoosing the links that should be automatically assigned metadata. iViaassigns metadata using subject and keyword lists. iVia then creates en-tries for author, title, abstract, keywords, metadata, and as many otherfields as it can fill in. These records are then reviewed and correctedand/or filled in as necessary to have a complete, accurate account of thedocument. They are then sent to the live database.
The second way iVia automatically harvests data is through the useof digital libraries. iVia recognizes digital libraries that have been addedto the portal–through the subject term “digital library”–and periodicallychecks them to see whether there is new relevant material that might beof use to the project. The software makes initial records of this materialand saves them in an area for review. If the material is beneficial to theproject, the records are completed and made live. iVia not only suggestsadditions to the portal, it learns what to look for from previous additionsto the database.
Later, the project team plans to implement the iVia automatic fo-cused crawler. This Web crawler searches the Web, looking for contentthat is similar to what already exists in the KCResearch portal, andbrings back the URLs for the information it finds. The program auto-matically adjusts its search strategy based on additions to the portal.
iVia’s trial run began by downloading the software onto a desktopserver. Beginning this way, KCResearch staff were able to explore thesoftware, begin building the collection, and customize the portal’s vi-sual and functional design.
Customization of the portal has been possible, but not easy. BecauseiVia is an open source product, KCResearch staff have had to do all ofthe customization. Coming into the project, the staff members wereknowledgeable about HTML, some in JavaScript and a few in UNIXcommands. iVia is written in a mix of HTML, JavaScript, C��, PERLand PHP. The two project staff members had a very wide technology-learning curve.
The public face of the project is the KCResearch Website (www.kcresearch.org). Users can do a simple search using the title, keyword,author, and description fields. An advanced search is also available whichallows users to customize searches. For the user who is not sure what sheis looking for, browsing is another option. Users can browse many fieldsincluding title, author, subject, and keyword.
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Along with searching and browsing capabilities, users are welcome tosuggest resources to be added to the portal. From the front Web page us-ers can offer suggestions that are sent to the KCResearch editors. Theportal also provides an e-mail alert service for popular topics/subjects.Users can receive an e-mail every 7, 14, or 28 days that will update themon new research that has been added to the portal.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS OF KCRESEARCH
Though much has been accomplished since the beginning of the proj-ect, there are many plans for the future. Future plans include increasingthe number of records in the database, finding ways to connect with re-searchers in the area, and configuring the iVia software to better fit theneeds and goals of the project.
The beginning of the project has been focused on setting up the data-base itself and defining its standards. Now the focus will shift to addingrecords. It is expected that the database will have 1,000 records by theend of 2005. By 2007, the size of the database is expected to treble,bringing the total number of records to 3,000. Importing MARC recordsof Kansas City-related research from the Kansas City Public Librarycatalog and utilizing the OAI-PMH crawler and virtual library crawlersthat are part of the iVia software are the primary ways in which we planto maintain a healthy growth rate of the database.
Focus group meetings are planned to discuss people’s expectationsof KCResearch and the types of research and abilities needed. The fo-cus group will include members of local nonprofit organizations, re-search institutions, and others from the community. After the focusgroups, the final customization of KCResearch can begin.
The official launch is scheduled for early 2006, after the focus groupsmeet. With the official launch following the focus group meetings,KCResearch will remain fresh in the participants’ and the public’s minds.The extensive work that has been done pre-launch will enable us to set inmotion plans for further development of the KCResearch project.
Another plan for the KCResearch project’s future is the creation of aScholars’ portal. This will be a place for researchers to connect witheach other and perhaps even collaborate on projects. The Scholars’ por-tal paves the way for the next development: the KCResearch awards.The awards are planned as an annual event that will highlight researchsubmitted to the portal. Also in future, RSS feeds will be incorporatedinto KCResearch.
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CONCLUSION
The value of the KCResearch project lies in its usefulness to a varietyof users. With its broad scope of research about the Kansas City area,many different groups and individuals, including government, policy-makers, researchers, students, teachers, advocacy groups, journalists,and the general public, will find relevant information.
Uses for researchers and government and policymakers are numer-ous. Although KCResearch serves as a portal to research that has al-ready been completed, it will also serve to show gaps in the research.Duplication of effort may be decreased since existing research will bebetter publicized.
Students and teachers can use KCResearch as a starting point for lo-cally focused projects and papers. Journalists and the general public canuse KCResearch to discover research done in the city specific to partic-ular neighborhoods, cities, counties, and the entire area. Newly pub-lished research, as well as older material will be available to show whatkind of progress is being made on current local issues.
“Yes ma’am, I can find that report for you–I know just the place tosearch.” Now, that’s a much more exciting and useful response! AsKCResearch grows, it will become a valuable place to seek and shareinformation–whether the user is a student, a professor, or anotherresearcher.
doi:10.1300/J118v24n03_06
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