The document discusses the development of the Resource Disco and Forward projects at the University of Wisconsin. Resource Disco was an experiment to develop a discovery layer for UW System collections, resulting in Forward which provides a single search interface for the UW System catalog, digital collections, and other resources. It describes Forward's features and use of open source software. Next steps may include expanding content, getting user feedback, and releasing a beta interface.

1. UW · Forward
> Mitch, Eric, Steve
> July 21, 2009 - CUWL
> http://disco.library.wisc.edu
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2. UW · Background
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3. UW · RDisco / Forward?
• The Resource Disco
- An "experiment" to develop a discovery layer for UW
System collections
‣ OPACS
‣ Digital Collections (UWDCC)
‣ Repository data (MINDS@UW)
‣ Museum content
‣ Web sites
‣ Archives
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4. UW · Forward
• The result of RDisco
• A discovery layer into:
- UW System catalog data
- Representative UWDCC
collections
- 70% of MINDS@UW
content
http://disco.library.wisc.edu/forward
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5. UW · Background
•A response to UW-Madison RDTF recommendations
and formation of CUWL RDTF
• From that report, recommendations:
1. Decouple the interface from the ILS
2. Complete control over the interface, data, and index
3. Emphasize interface simplicity
4. Sophisticated search and result functionalities
5.Seamlessly integrate and deliver UW collections
6. Adapt to user behaviors
7. Encourage personalization and customization
8. Be where our users work and play
9. Compare well in design and user experience to popular Internet
destinations
10. Be staffed for excellence and continuous change
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6. UW · More Background
• UW-Madison Shared Development Group (SDG)
- Tech Enhanced Learning project with School of
Human Ecology (Disco environment and Fedora
repository for instructors)
• February - July
- 0.5 FTE February-April
- 1.5 FTE May-July
• Maturation of proven software (high powered indexing)
• VuFind and Blacklight analysis
• Leveraged a core of smart coders/librarians
• Organizational commitment to application development
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7. UW · Key Principles
• Experiment
• One system, one library, one interface
- Added complexity of consortium
• Use of proven software
• Flexible and extensible to different types of data
• Discovery layer only
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8. UW · Next Steps?
• Functional assessment, feedback, participation
• Resource assessment and support development
projection
• Beta interface sometime in the not-so-distant future?
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9. UW · Demo
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35. UW · Features
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36. UW · Features
• Content • Bling
- Catalog + - Book covers
- Digital Collection + - Author info / bios
- Institutional Repository - Image zoom, slideshow
- Unicode compliant
• Circulation status
• Search - Nightly
- Natural language
- Fielded-search • Open Source
- Facets - Ruby on Rails
- Sort: relevance, date, title - Solr / Lucene
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37. UW · Future
• Forward is Blacklight
• Blacklight - available
- Search history
- APA/MLA citations
- Export to Refworks
- Email records / results
- SMS records / results
• Blacklight - future
- Endnote, Zotero support
- EAD files
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38. UW · Context
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39. CUWL · Recommendation
“UW Libraries should continue to
analyze the functionality and
integration of library services”
Unpublished - CUWL RDETF
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41. Results
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42. Context
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43. UW · Context
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44. UW · Context
Context
Results (Ads)
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45. UW · Context
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46. UW · Context
Context
Results (facts)
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47. UW · Context Freebase
“open database
of the world’s
information”
Wikipedia -
unstructured data
Freebase -
structured data
http://www.freebase.com/
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48. UW · Context Bing
External APIs
- Related searches
- Instant Answers?
- Web results?
- Web images?
http://www.bing.com/
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49. UW · Context Local
Our APIs
- Ask a Librarian
- Subject Liaisons
- Bibliographers
- LibGuides?
- Libraries?
- Coll. Highlights
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50. UW · Context
Hours Subject guides Digital collections
Workshops More like this... Common book
New items Local experts Library news
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51. UW · Workflow
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53. Irrespective of Which System…
This work will be
inescapable.
- Will present both
opportunities and
challenges
- Must adapt/change over time
with users
- Expectations will be set by the
Web at large (i.e., outside of
the library sphere)
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54. Assumptions
“One System, One Library”
translates to
One Catalog
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56. UW · What Have
We Learned?
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57. Our Data is Messy
1969 c1969 [1969]
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58. A catalog is not a catalog is not a catalog.
“Mr. Wiggles,” by Bill Futreal
http://www.flickr.com/photos/billfutreal/112141388/
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65. UW · So What?
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66. Certain collections are special
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67. Farmers’ Bulle2ns
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68. Archival Materials
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69. Museum Content
(non‐tradi2onal library materials/data)
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70. UW · Data
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71. UW · Data
“Data outlasts code”
Ian Davis, code{4}lib 2009
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72. UW · Data
“Open data is more
important than open source”
Ian Davis, code{4}lib 2009
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73. UW · Data
When picking the next
Resource Discovery System,
don’t lock up your data
and throw away the key.
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74. UW · Thanks
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