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1 – 10 of over 7000Takahiro Komamizu, Toshiyuki Amagasa and Hiroyuki Kitagawa
XML has become a standard data format for many applications and efficient retrieval methods are required. Typically, there are roughly two kinds of retrieval methods, namely…
Abstract
Purpose
XML has become a standard data format for many applications and efficient retrieval methods are required. Typically, there are roughly two kinds of retrieval methods, namely path‐based method (e.g. XPath and XQuery) and keyword search, but these methods do not work when users do not have any concrete information need. To expand feasibility of XML data retrieval is an important task and this is the purpose of this paper.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper's strategy is to apply faceted navigation for XML data. Faceted navigation is an exploratory search which enables the exploration of data making use of attributes, called facets. General faceted navigation methods are applied for attributed objects but XML data have no criteria because XML nodes are objects and facets. Thus, the paper's approach is to construct a framework to enable faceted navigation over XML data. It first extracts objects based on occurrence of nodes and facets. Then it constructs a faceted navigation interface for extracted objects and facets.
Findings
The framework achieves semi‐automatic construction of faceted navigation interface from an XML database. In the experiments, the show feasibility of the framework is shown by three faceted navigation interfaces using existing real XML data. On the other hand, the user study shows the retrieval method helps users to find required information.
Originality/value
There are only a few works which apply faceted navigation for XML data and these works are based on predefined objects and facets which need human effort. In contrast, this framework needs human decision making only when choosing objects and facets to be used in the faceted navigation interface.
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Kathleen Bauer and Alice Peterson‐Hart
This research aimed to explore whether subject facets would increase patron use of subject headings in a faceted (Yufind) versus a non‐faceted (Orbis) catalog interface at Yale…
Abstract
Purpose
This research aimed to explore whether subject facets would increase patron use of subject headings in a faceted (Yufind) versus a non‐faceted (Orbis) catalog interface at Yale University.
Design/methodology/approach
Two rounds of think aloud protocol testing were done with students to measure the acceptance and use of subject heading facets. After a faceted and non‐faceted interface were implemented, side‐by‐side, log file analysis was employed to measure and compare use of subject headings in both interfaces.
Findings
Initial usability testing showed that patrons would try facets, but had some problems effectively using them. In production from January to May 2011, at least one facet was used in 25.4 percent of Yufind searches, and subject facets were used in 5.1 percent of searches, while in Orbis subject headings were used in 6.4 percent of searches. Facets were used less than subject heading links in records in either interface.
Practical implications
The findings are important as libraries spend significant staff time adding subject headings to records, and their use by patrons is declining. As measured in two production systems running on exactly the same catalog records, subject heading facets did not successfully increase use of subject headings. Without further refinements, faceted display may not be a successful strategy to increase patron use of subject headings.
Originality/value
A comparison of patron generated subject heading use in two concurrently running interfaces, one faceted and one not, has not been done before.
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In recent years, aceted search has been a well-accepted approach for many academic libraries across the United States. This chapter is based on the author’s dissertation and work…
Abstract
Purpose
In recent years, aceted search has been a well-accepted approach for many academic libraries across the United States. This chapter is based on the author’s dissertation and work of many years on faceted library catalogs. Not to hope to be exhaustive, the author’s aim is to provide sufficient depth and breadth to offer a useful resource to researchers, librarians, and practitioners about faceted search used in library catalogs.
Method
The chapter reviews different aspects of faceted search used in academic libraries, from the theory, the history, to the implementation. It starts with the history of online public access catalogs (OPACs) and how people search with OPACs. Then it introduces the classic facet theory and its relationship with faceted search. At last, various academic research projects on faceted search, especially faceted library catalogs, are briefly reviewed. These projects include both implementation studies and the evaluation studies.
Findings
The results indicate that most searchers were able to understand the concept of facets naturally and easily. Compared to text searches, however, faceted searches were complementary and supplemental, and used only by a small group of searchers.
Practical implications
The author hopes that the facet feature has not only been cosmetic but the answer to the call for the next generation catalog for academic libraries. The results of this research are intended to inform librarians and library information technology (IT) staff to improve the effectiveness of the catalogs to help people find information they need more efficiently.
Andrea Cuna and Gabriele Angeli
This paper puts forward a MARC-based semiautomated approach to extracting semantically rich subject facets from general and/or specialized controlled vocabularies for display in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper puts forward a MARC-based semiautomated approach to extracting semantically rich subject facets from general and/or specialized controlled vocabularies for display in topic-oriented faceted catalog interfaces in a way that would better support users' exploratory search tasks.
Design/methodology/approach
Hierarchical faceted subject metadata is extracted from general and/or specialized controlled vocabularies by using standard client/server communication protocols. Rigorous facet analysis, classification and linguistic principles are applied on top of that to ensure faceting accuracy and consistency.
Findings
A shallow application of facet analysis and classification, together with poorly organized displays, is one of the major barriers to effective faceted navigation in library, archive and museum catalogs.
Research limitations/implications
This paper does not deal with Web-scale discovery services.
Practical implications
This paper offers suggestions that can be used by the technical services departments of libraries, archives and museums in designing and developing more powerful exploratory search interfaces.
Originality/value
This paper addresses the problem of deriving clearly delineated topical facets from existing metadata for display in a user-friendly, high-level topical overview that is meant to encourage a multidimensional exploration of local collections as well as “learning by browsing.”
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Mohammad Nasir Uddin and Paul Janecek
Development of an effective search system and interface largely depends on usability studies. The aim of this paper is to present the results of an empirical evaluation of a…
Abstract
Purpose
Development of an effective search system and interface largely depends on usability studies. The aim of this paper is to present the results of an empirical evaluation of a prototype web site search and browsing tool based on multidimensional taxonomies derived from the use of faceted classification.
Design/methodology/approach
A prototype Faceted Classification System (FCS), which classifies and organizes web documents under different facets (orthogonal sets of categories), was implemented on the domain of an academic institute. Facet are created from content oriented metadata, and then assembled into multiple taxonomies that describe alternative classifications of the web site content, such as by subject and location. The search and browsing interfaces use these taxonomies to enable users to access information in multiple ways. The paper compares the FCS interfaces to the existing single‐classification system to evaluate the usability of the facets in typical navigation and searching tasks.
Findings
The findings suggest that performance and usability are significantly better with the FCS in the areas of efficient access, search success, flexibility, understanding of content, relevant search result, and satisfaction. These results are especially promising since unfamiliarity often leads users to reject new search interfaces.
Originality/value
The results of the study in this paper can significantly contribute to interface research in the IR community, emphasizing the advantages of multidimensional taxonomies in online information collections.
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Takahiro Komamizu, Toshiyuki Amagasa and Hiroyuki Kitagawa
The purpose of this paper is to extract appropriate terms to summarize the current results in terms of the contents of textual facets. Faceted search on XML data helps users find…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to extract appropriate terms to summarize the current results in terms of the contents of textual facets. Faceted search on XML data helps users find necessary information from XML data by giving attribute–content pairs (called facet-value pair) about the current search results. However, if most of the contents of a facet have longer texts in average (such facets are called textual facets), it is not easy to overview the current results.
Design/methodology/approach
The proposed approach is based upon subsumption relationships of terms among the contents of a facet. The subsumption relationship can be extracted using co-occurrences of terms among a number of documents (in this paper, a content of a facet is considered as a document). Subsumption relationships compose hierarchies, and the authors utilize the hierarchies to extract facet-values from textual facets. In the faceted search context, users have ambiguous search demands, they expect broader terms. Thus, we extract high-level terms in the hierarchies as facet-values.
Findings
The main findings of this paper are the extracted terms improve users’ search experiences, especially in cases when the search demands are ambiguous.
Originality/value
An originality of this paper is the way to utilize the textual contents of XML data for improving users’ search experiences on faceted search. The other originality is how to design the tasks to evaluate exploratory search like faceted search.
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Vanda Broughton and Aida Slavic
This paper aims to provide an overview of principles and procedures involved in creating a faceted classification scheme for use in resource discovery in an online environment.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide an overview of principles and procedures involved in creating a faceted classification scheme for use in resource discovery in an online environment.
Design/methodology/approach
Facet analysis provides an established rigorous methodology for the conceptual organization of a subject field, and the structuring of an associated classification or controlled vocabulary. This paper explains how that methodology was applied to the humanities in the FATKS project, where the objective was to explore the potential of facet analytical theory for creating a controlled vocabulary for the humanities, and to establish the requirements of a faceted classification appropriate to an online environment. A detailed faceted vocabulary was developed for two areas of the humanities within a broader facet framework for the whole of knowledge. Research issues included how to create a data model which made the faceted structure explicit and machine‐readable and provided for its further development and use.
Findings
In order to support easy facet combination in indexing, and facet searching and browsing on the interface, faceted classification requires a formalized data structure and an appropriate tool for its management. The conceptual framework of a faceted system proper can be applied satisfactorily to humanities, and fully integrated within a vocabulary management system.
Research limitations/implications
The procedures described in this paper are concerned only with the structuring of the classification, and do not extend to indexing, retrieval and application issues.
Practical implications
Many stakeholders in the domain of resource discovery consider developing their own classification system and supporting tools. The methods described in this paper may clarify the process of building a faceted classification and may provide some useful ideas with respect to the vocabulary maintenance tool.
Originality/value
As far as the authors are aware there is no comparable research in this area.
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Mohammad Nasir Uddin and Paul Janecek
The aim of this paper is to develop and implement a multidimensional classification system in the web that can provide an alternative but convenient structure for organising and…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to develop and implement a multidimensional classification system in the web that can provide an alternative but convenient structure for organising and finding information content.
Design/methodology/approach
A prototype system is developed following the views of Ranganathan's faceted classification, which is to provide multiple classifications of the web documents through content oriented metadata organised under different facets (orthogonal groups of categories).
Findings
Based on an architectural framework this study demonstrates a prototype faceted classification system (FCS) that is integrated into a general open‐source content management system and populated with a sample collection of institutional web pages/documents.
Originality/value
The study provides significant grounds for the IR community to improve interface structure for easy access, management, and retrieval of web information. In addition, the integration of content management tools with multidimensional taxonomies can be a new instance of a corporate web system for easy content creation, organisation, and navigation.
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Melissa A. Hofmann and Sharon Q. Yang
This paper aims to determine the current usage of next generation online public access catalogs (OPACs) and discovery tools in academic libraries in the USA and Canada.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to determine the current usage of next generation online public access catalogs (OPACs) and discovery tools in academic libraries in the USA and Canada.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the same random sample of 260 colleges and universities in the USA and Canada from their original study, the authors revisited each institution's library web page to ascertain whether the OPAC interface(s) offered were the same or different than in their initial data collection. Data was collected and analyzed in October and November 2011.
Findings
Discovery tool use has practically doubled in the last two years, from 16 percent to 29 percent. A total of 96 percent of academic libraries using discovery tools still provide access to their legacy catalog. The percentage of institutions using ILS OPACs with faceted navigation has increased from 2 percent to 4 percent. Combining the use of discovery tools and faceted OPACs, at least 33 percent of academic libraries are now using a faceted interface. Discovery tools that aim to be the “single point of entry for all library resources” are the most recently popular.
Research limitations/implications
About 16 percent of the institutions (n=43) in the sample either did not have web sites or did not provide access to their online catalogs. Thus, some data might be underreported.
Practical implications
The findings identify trends that may inform academic libraries in the quest to providing next generation interfaces to their varied resources.
Originality/value
This study gives a timely update of next generation catalog (NGC) and discovery tool usage in academic libraries in the USA and Canada.
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Mohammad Nasir Uddin and Paul Janecek
The purpose of this paper is to develop and implement a faceted classification structure to improve web information organization, access and navigability.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop and implement a faceted classification structure to improve web information organization, access and navigability.
Design/methodology/approach
Some case studies of commercial web sites using faceted metadata were analyzed to develop the classification approach. The proposed framework adapts the facet analysis theory from Faceted Classification System (FCS) to use semantic web tools especially XML and RDF store, and ontology, and is designed to be integrated within a Content Management System (CMS). A detailed example of a faceted classification system for an academic information system is used to demonstrate the construction of an FCS from metadata.
Findings
Detailed examples show how classifying and organizing information in multidimensional hierarchies is more accessible than simple one‐dimensional taxonomic hierarchies.
Research limitations/implications
A prototype, based on the proposed framework, is being developed using the web site of an academic institution as a case study.
Originality/value
Enhances the FCS research with a notion of integrating ontology driven faceted classification structures by XML/RDF language and content management tools. A dynamic approach to organizing and searching web information provides users with multiple ways of accessing information based on their knowledge and information needs.
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