Feedback on the New Look SUNCAT

Jun 062013
 

As we posted a few weeks ago a preview of the new look SUNCAT service is available at http://test.suncat.ac.uk and a huge thank you to all who have sent us comments so far.

We’ve now put up a short survey and would be very grateful for your input which will help to guide the ongoing development of the service. If you prefer you can also let us have your comments via the EDINA helpdesk at edina@ed.ac.uk

We would also encourage you to circulate details of the preview service and the survey as widely as possible.

Both the survey and the preview will only be available until Monday 13th May, but development work will still be continuing and so we will have more posts to keep you up to date with progress.

Please take a few minutes to let us know what you think!

 June 6, 2013  Posted by at 2:46 pm Developments Tagged with: ,  No Responses »

Preview the New Look SUNCAT

Jun 062013
 

Good morning from UKSG 2013! As promised last month the new look SUNCAT is now available for you to preview at http://test.suncat.ac.uk

The current service will continue as the primary service for the moment, but we would encourage you to take a look, experiment and let us have your feedback on the new service as soon as you get a chance.

The new service is still in development, so there are still issues to be resolved with keeping it up-to-date, searching and relevancy ranking, but to give you a flavour, the new service:

• Integrates information from the website and the actual service more closely, with the search box, a map of our Contributing Libraries and a feed of our latest news all on the homepage

• Enables searching limited to a specific library or selection of libraries: you will only see the serials’ holdings of libraries you have specified in your search

• Enables searching limited to a specific location or selection of locations, all the way from Inverness to Exeter: again you will only see the serials’ holdings in locations you have specified in your search.

• Plus you can combine library and location limits to suit your individual search requirements

• Enables searching limited to electronic or print serials only: helpful if you only want to see what might be immediately available online or conversely if want to see only material likely to be available via Inter-Library Loan.

• Enables filtering of search results by library, location, subject, organisation, publisher, date etc.

• Enables more sophisticated searching via the Advanced Search option

• Allows you to choose how many records you want to display on your search results screen

• Provides an alphabetical list of all the libraries holding a particular serial title

• Allows you to quickly see if holdings are print or electronic

• Opens up further information about each library, including directions, contact details, British Library code and when it was last updated in SUNCAT

If you are attending UKSG, please come along to the EDINA stand 26 and we will be happy to demo the service for you and answer your questions in person. However, you can also let us know what you think or if you have any questions or suggestions via the EDINA helpdesk at edina@ed.ac.uk

We hope you like what you see!

 June 6, 2013  Posted by at 2:36 pm Developments Tagged with: , , ,  No Responses »

SUNCAT Redevelopment: Focus on Limiting your Search by Institution or Location

Jun 062013
 

This is the first in a series of blog posts which will highlight some of the new or improved features which will be available in the redeveloped SUNCAT. In this post we are going to focus on how the institutional and geographic limits will improve with the new service in comparison to the current service.

Old SUNCAT: You can only select one institution and/or one location per search.

New SUNCAT: Select as many institutions/locations as you like per search. Also, in the future, we hope to allow you to select and save your preferred group of institutions as your default search preference. We would also hope to set up some pre-selected groupings based on institutional consortia or geographic area. For example these might include UK Research Reserve (UKRR), Scottish Higher Education Digital Library (SHEDL) or Wales, North West England etc.

Old SUNCAT: Only one location (normally the main library) is recorded for each institution on the service, so the geographical location limit is, therefore, not always exact.

New SUNCAT: The new service records all of our contributing institutions’ physical libraries so limiting by location is now much more granular and precise.

Old SUNCAT: You can’t select an institution if it’s outside a location limit you have also selected. For example if you choose to limit your search to the location of “Edinburgh” you cannot then, in addition, select and search on an institution outside Edinburgh, e.g. the University of Glasgow

New SUNCAT: You can combine your limits to create very specific searches tailored for your individual requirements. For example, you can create a search limited to the location of “London” but then also include individual institutions outside London, e.g. University of Oxford.

Old SUNCAT: Although a search with limits applied does only return titles held by that institution or within that location, holdings from other institutions/locations outside of the selected limits will also be displayed.

New SUNCAT: Only holdings within the institutions or locations selected will be returned and displayed, creating a clearer more focussed result and record display.

Naturally, the improved recording of institutions’ individual library locations and the improved functionality of the limits are both vital for the new SUNCAT mobile app which will also be released later this year.

If you have any questions or suggestions about how the limits will work on the new SUNCAT or on the development in general, please contact us at edina@ed.ac.uk.

 June 6, 2013  Posted by at 2:07 pm Developments Tagged with: , ,  No Responses »

SUNCAT Survey Report 2013

Feb 142013
 

We’ve just published the reportfrom our Benefits and Impact Survey for 2013. The survey was launched back in November and closed at the end of last month.

The report confirms SUNCAT’s primary role as a centralised source of serials information and UK holdings, with 75% of responses stating, either locating serials and articles, or checking bibliographic information, as the primary purposes for using the service.

The key features of the service which are most valued by the respondents include:

  • SUNCAT’s comprehensive coverage
  • Its aggregation and display of serials information and UK holdings
  • The accuracy and currency of the data provided
  • The speed and ease of use of the service

We are very happy to see that the vast majority of respondents find SUNCAT not only easy or very easy to use (86%) but that it also saves them time (89%). Further, 97% indicated they would recommend the service to others.

“It is such a comprehensive reference source it would take me much longer to check information elsewhere.”

“SUNCAT is easy to use and its coverage of UK serial holdings is great.”

“Very trustworthy, fast and comprehensive. Records are to a very high standard.”

“Find Suncat invaluable. If it wasn’t available I would try to source an alternative. Don’t know what though!”

We also used the survey to find out what improvements our users would like to see in SUNCAT so that we can use this information to plan and prioritise our future developments. A number of the suggestions related to the data provided by the SUNCAT Contributing Libraries (CLs), both requesting more detailed holdings information and also providing additional information such as licensing restrictions for electronic serials. While this area is not one EDINA has immediate control over we do take note of these ideas, in the hope that if our CLs start recording and linking such information to their serials records, we would be able to start incorporating this into SUNCAT.

However, with regard to suggested improvements related to the SUNCAT interface we are happy to report that a number of these will be addressed as part of the redevelopment of SUNCAT, announced in November and mentioned in the previous posting. These include:

  • Moving the search functionality to the homepage of the service to integrate the service and website more closely
  • Providing a print/electronic serials limit to the search functionality to enable users to pre-filter their search by format
  • Adding print/electronic icons to the holdings display to enable users to more quickly and easily distinguish between print and electronic holdings

It is also good to know that our users are keen to see the service continue to expand and we will indeed be continuing to add new libraries throughout 2013.

Additional suggestions, described in the report, were also received and we will be investigating the feasibility of these and where possible adding them to a list of requirements for future development work.
SUNCAT is the Serials Union Catalogue for the UK. Visit the service at http://www.suncat.ac.uk or the SUNCAT blog at http://suncatblog.blogspot.com
 February 14, 2013  Posted by at 12:52 pm Developments Tagged with: ,  No Responses »

SUNCAT Redevelopment: Technical architecture overview

Feb 132013
 

Back in a post in November 2012 we announced that EDINA is redeveloping the existing SUNCAT search platform. We also gave you a preview of the new design and now we want to follow these posts up with more technical information about the new architecture.

New Search Platform

The cornerstone to the SUNCAT service is the ability to search for libraries’ MARC records and we wanted this to be as efficient as possible within the new architecture. We have therefore decided to use the open source enterprise search platform ‘Solr’ from the Apache Software foundation given its popularity and feature set.

We have established a workflow, which exports records from Aleph (currently used for loading and de-duplication of libraries’ serial records) and indexes these records within Solr.

The diagram below illustrates the process:

Individual MARC records are exported from Aleph and these are then grouped into MARC collections. A MARC collection consists of records from the libraries holding a particular serial.

These MARC collections are then indexed in Solr using a modified version of the open source solrmarc code.

Currently the Solr index consists of over 5 million individual library MARC records and in terms of storage sizes, this equates to over 30GB on disk.

New Interface

Storing all of the records in Solr however is only part of the new architecture. We are developing a new user interface for the SUNCAT service, taking the opportunity to also incorporate some new features that exploit the power of Solr.

A combination of the Java programming language, Groovy programming language and the Grails framework has been chosen as the software stack as it enables a rapid development process and also leverages the experience of developers within EDINA.

Grails follows the highly popular software design pattern of Model View Controller, which allows separation of concerns and a clean software design.

The following diagram illustrates at a very high level the architecture we are using and how Solr is involved:

We are developing a number of ‘controllers’, which are used to process user requests and issue queries to Solr as and when required. These controllers are designed for specific tasks e.g.

• Handling search requests

• Handling API requests

• Handling requests to view details of a specific MARC record etc.

We also have a number of templates that comprise the ‘views’ of the new system. When a controller has completed the processing of the user request and it is ready to return something to the user (e.g. a web page), it uses the relevant template and injects the correct data e.g. the search results. Using a template approach for all of the views of the system provides a huge amount of flexibility as we have full control of all visual aspects of the service and we can even support different output formats based on the user request e.g. supporting HTML, XML, JSON etc.

Enabling Searching at Library Level

We are also spending time in constructing a database to store institution, library and location data and integrating this within the new user interface in-order to allow users to perform more detailed searches within SUNCAT. For example searches can be performed at the library level whereas previously users could only search at the institutional level. We have also tagged every library with its GPS coordinates, which allows us to show all SUNCAT contributing libraries in a map interface and will allow proximity based searching in the forthcoming SUNCAT mobile application for iOS.

We will be keeping you up to date with more posts, about the redevelopment and the mobile app, to follow over the next few months.

SUNCAT is the Serials Union Catalogue for the UK. Visit the service at http://www.suncat.ac.uk or the SUNCAT blog at http://suncatblog.blogspot.com
 February 13, 2013  Posted by at 12:23 pm Developments Tagged with: , , , , , ,  No Responses »

SUNCAT Redevelopment

Feb 072013
 

We reported in a blog post in November that a new interface for SUNCAT is being developed and since good progress has been made we are keen to share with you more details on what we are doing and perhaps more importantly when we plan to show what has been done. We are working towards having a public preview of the new interface early in April.

Building up to this we will have a blog post next week on the technical architecture which has been adopted. This will be followed by blog posts on the functionality, which will be available initially, and outlining the details for the public preview. We are very keen to find out from our users what they think of the development and accordingly will be asking for feedback after users have had a chance to view the interface.

Future blog posts will include sharing the roadmap of our planned developments until the end of the year and providing information on specific aspects of the technical developments.

It’s clearly a busy time for us but we feel that it is time and effort well spent as we will be in a position to develop and implement requested functionality much more quickly than we have been able to in the past.

 February 7, 2013  Posted by at 12:24 pm Developments Tagged with: , , ,  No Responses »

New Design for SUNCAT

Nov 282012
 

As part of the SUNCAT Redevelopment we reported on last week, we will be introducing a new contemporary design for the SUNCAT web interface.

A number of designs were produced by EDINA’s in-house designer, based on a design brief submitted by the SUNCAT team based on

Feedback suggested that the current design was well liked but was starting to look somewhat dated so some key elements of the brief included:

  • Keeping the SUNCAT logo and colours for continuity
  • Keeping the search functionality at the heart of the design
  • Incorporating other elements of the site into the search homepage to reflect a more portal style approach
  • Trying to keep the design clean and simple.

After the initial set of designs was discussed and adapted by the SUNCAT team, the selection was narrowed to two preferred designs which were then circulated to EDINA colleagues for comment.

We were then keen to consult our SUNCAT contributors to involve them in the final selection and to gather feedback which could be incorporated into the ultimate design. A short online survey was made available to SUNCAT contributing libraries for a week at the beginning of November. Sixty responses were received in total, from at least 26 different libraries.

Seventy-two percent of respondents preferred the design displayed below, one percent liked both designs equally and happily none of the respondents reported that they didn’t like either design. The main reasons for preferring the design below included:

  • Simpler, cleaner and more user friendly
  • Preferred colours and images
  • Layout of search and filters on the screen
  • Having a map of contributing libraries and a newsfeed easily accessible on the homepage
New Design for SUNCAT Interface

We will now be looking at some of the suggestions on how to improve the design, such as:

  • Changing the colour of the “Find Now” to better differentiate it from the limit options
  • Moving the Advanced Search and Browse buttons closer to the main search box
  • Moving the Reset button to beneath the “Find Now” button.
The new design will form part of the beta release of the new platform in spring 2013, please let us know if you have any comments about SUNCAT’s new look in the meantime.
SUNCAT is the Serials Union Catalogue for the UK. Visit the service at http://www.suncat.ac.uk.
 November 28, 2012  Posted by at 11:56 am Developments Tagged with: , ,  No Responses »

Redevelopment of SUNCAT Platform

Nov 212012
 

EDINA has embarked on a programme to redevelop the existing SUNCAT search platform. The impetus for this redevelopment emerged from a long held desire to not only provide enhanced functionality but also to be able to be more responsive to user feedback regarding suggested improvements.

Work commenced on the first phase of this development in spring 2012 as EDINA developers started to design and implement an entirely new bespoke user interface for the SUNCAT service.

In this initial development phase SUNCAT will continue to rely on Ex Libris’ Aleph software to load and de-duplicate contributing libraries’ serials records. The web interface however, will be developed in-house leveraging the open source enterprise search platform, Solr to facilitate highly efficient searching across the millions of SUNCAT records.

The developers considered a number of options to facilitate record searching, but Solr proved to be the best solution for dealing with the complex issues around searching and displaying records grouped into matched sets, a central component of the SUNCAT service. Moving to this open source platform should allow EDINA to have greater control and flexibility over the functionality and presentation of SUNCAT.

One key area of improvement, which will be available from the outset, is the ability to limit search results restricted to holdings from multiple libraries and locations. These limits will include all the individual locations of each of our contributing libraries, rather than just locations at an institutional level as with the current service. Another benefit will be that users will be able to select multiple locations and/or institutions to limit their search by, so giving them great flexibility. The limits will now also ensure that users only see the holdings from locations or institutions they are interested in, as any extraneous holdings will no longer be displayed. These improvements mean that in the future EDINA will be able to provide customised views onto the service, configurable at both the individual user level, and also at a higher geographic, subject specialist or consortial level.

The improvements to the geographic limits are particularly important for the mobile application which is also currently in development. EDINA conducted some early user testing with a small group of volunteers earlier in the year and it is hoped that a beta version will be made more widely available early in 2013.

Other key areas of new functionality will follow throughout the next year. The SUNCAT team have identified a wish list of features based on user feedback and also on a survey of some of the best functionality available in commercial search engines, library and union catalogues in the UK, Europe and beyond.

The feedback and survey also informed the design brief for the redeveloped service. Having considered a number of designs the SUNCAT team have narrowed the selection down to a few favoured options and we are currently consulting with our contributing libraries to decide on the final design.

It is hoped that a beta version of the new platform will be available in spring 2013, when we will be asking our users to provide feedback on progress. We hope that you will approve of the changes to come!

SUNCAT is the Serials Union Catalogue for the UK. Visit the service at http://www.suncat.ac.uk.
 November 21, 2012  Posted by at 4:30 pm Developments Tagged with: , , , , ,  No Responses »

New SUNCAT demonstration video

Nov 242011
 

Another new short video is available on the SUNCAT website. It is a step-by-step demonstration of SUNCAT, highlighting the search options and how to view Table of Contents and access full-text articles of selected journals found via the service.

As mentioned in a blog post last month, there is also a short video available in which Natasha Aburrow-Jones, SUNCAT Project Officer, describes SUNCAT, including its coverage, functionality and features.

We hope both of these productions will help you get the most out of SUNCAT and also introduce and promote the service to users. If you have any questions about the videos, or the service in general, please contact the EDINA helpdesk at edina@ed.ac.uk.

 November 24, 2011  Posted by at 11:08 am Developments Tagged with: , ,  No Responses »

New SUNCAT video

Nov 242011
 

A new video is now available on the SUNCAT website. – The first is a demonstration of SUNCAT, highlighting the search options and
also how to access journal articles and table of contents via the service.
– The second is a short introduction to the service by one of the SUNCAT team,
with information on what SUNCAT does and what it contains.

We hope both of these productions will help you introduce and promote SUNCAT to your users.

If you have any questions about the videos, or the service in general, please contact the EDINA helpdesk at edina@ed.ac.uk.

 November 24, 2011  Posted by at 11:02 am Developments Tagged with: ,  No Responses »
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