[WEB4LIB] RE: Decision tree for Web resources

[Roy Tennant]

On Mar 16, 2005, at 9:17 AM, Ross Singer wrote:

> CDL's Searchlight (formerly Database Advisor):
> http://searchlight.cdlib.org/cgi-bin/searchlight
> sort of does what you're talking about.  The user enters a query and it
> queries the databases in a given subject area for relevance.
>
> Of course, CDL isn't really pursuing this anymore, but the technology
> still holds some merit (at least in principle).

The above statement is, oddly enough, simultaneously right and wrong. 
Ross is correct that we are in the midst of replacing Searchlight with 
a different metasearching infrastructure, but believe it or not, we are 
also planning to return to its roots as well. That is, we realized that 
especially for our "SmartStart" portal aimed at undergraduates, a good 
subject database recommendation service could be a really useful 
component of such a search service.

In other words, a search is entered, we search it in several large, 
general purpose databases, but simultaneously also use that query to 
try to determine which (probably top three) subject-focused databases 
would apply for that search, and display those to the user as well 
along with the search results from the general databases. We haven't 
yet figured out the best way of doing that database advisor function, 
which is why we are very interested in the work or Ross and others who 
are trying different methods. If anyone has any great ideas, I'm all 
ears! Thanks,
Roy