[Web4lib] Faceted navigation as metasearch

[Casey Bisson]

On Dec 30, 2006, at 7:30 PM, K.G. Schneider wrote:

>> Karen, The problem with metasearch is that you're working with  
>> retrieved
>> sets -- and with the data in different formats.
>
> The library-based metasearch applications have capabilities built  
> in around
> database providers' capabilities (I almost wrote limitations...),  
> while the


Another approach to this is to get the aggregated facet data from the  
database vendors as part of the search. If the vendor offered good  
access to the data, with a list of both results _and_ relevant facets  
(and suggested alternate searches), our metasearch apps could simply  
display that without having to do the processing.

Tops on my wishlist for 2007 is better/more implementation of  
OpenSearch in library systems. OpenSearch supports returning facet  
info and suggested alternate searches, turning this into a problem of  
how to display and use the data.
Casey Bisson
__________________________________________

Information Architect
Plymouth State University
Plymouth, New Hampshire
http://oz.plymouth.edu/~cbisson/
ph: 603-535-2256