Talk:Library Card platform/Search/Archive 2

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Search now available for testing[edit]

Tracked in Phabricator:
Task T269932
@PKM, Deisenbe, Fuchs B, Bruce1ee, Larrykoen, ValeJappo, SusunW, Barkeep49, RolandR, Qazwsx777, Habitator terrae, KylieTastic, Joseywales1961, Asdrubal, Aschmidt, Basquetteur, Der wilde bernd, Ján Kepler, Redwidgeon, Coretheapple, Whiteguru, Franky Fusion, FieldMarine, Mirer, Assem Khidhr, Temp3600, Cquoi, AquariaNR, Novem Linguae, and Warshy: Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 08:53, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all - thanks for your feedback above! It really helped us figure out how to best implement this feature. We've now finished configuring and setting up the search tool and it is available for testing on the Staging tool.

Note that the Staging tool (twlight-staging.wmflabs.org) is not synced with the main library tool, and uses an old database copy. As such, things like applications aren't reviewed there unless we're testing something.

We really need your help to test all the edge cases of this tool - it has a complex array of configuration options and we're sure there are still things we need to finalise. Try the search tool out in your research and let us know if you can't access something you think you should be able to or run into any other issues. By default you should be able to access all full text search results as we're only indexing Bundle (automatically granted) and open access content initially.

When searching we should be providing the search interface in your library-selected language where available. The only languages this won't currently work for which are supported in EDS are pt-br, pt-pt, zh-hans, and zh-hant. We just need to work on a little language code mapping before those languages function as intended.

Please also let us know if you have any other feedback about the tool - is anything confusing? Does it work the way you expect? Please feel free to leave your feedback here or at T269932. Thanks, Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 08:53, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Samwalton9 (WMF): At first glance it looks very impressive. I tried a couple of searches and I got some nice hits. Some returned "Full Text Finder" links, which take me to a blank EBSCO search form. Does that mean it can't find the full text? Also, if I search for this book "All Our Stories Are Here" in Project MUSE in the live library card platform, I can find the book here, and I can access all the chapters. If I do the same search in the Staging Tool, I get 65 hits; when I choose Project MUSE in "Filter by Database", I get 26 hits, and I can see the book chapters, but they all have "Full Text Finder" links. So it finds the book, but I can't access the chapters. One last thing, I like the filters on the left hand side, but what would be a nice addition is "Filter by Publication". Otherwise it's looking good so far. —Bruce1eetalk 11:20, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Bruce1ee: Thanks for this! Full Text Finder is on our list of things which aren't set up properly, I'm getting sent to a login screen when I attempt to click a FTF link. In terms of Project MUSE, this is because MUSE is an application-based publisher; we're only indexing Bundle collections by default with the intention that you should be able to access all results. We'll be adding a filter soon which allows you to expand to the entire library, with the caveat that some results may not be accessible until you file an application. Unfortunately we couldn't customise the results to each individual user's available collections, it's just not a use case these search tools are built for because at a library you usually have access to everything, one or two subsets of everything, or nothing. Here we have a potentially very large number of different sets depending on what each user has access to. I'm going to think about how we might be able to signpost this in a better way. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 11:30, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Samwalton9 (WMF): Sorry, my mistake. I didn't read your initial comments properly: "we're only indexing Bundle (automatically granted) and open access content". —Bruce1eetalk 11:43, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Bruce1ee: No worries at all - I think this is likely to be a common confusion among folks who don't have my explanations to read before hand :) I'm contemplating a small 'Learn more about search' button below/beside the search box which could pop out a brief explanation of the above. Do you think that would be helpful? Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 11:46, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Samwalton9 (WMF): Yes, I think a pop-out would help. What may also be necessary later is a link to a search help page with tips and examples. —Bruce1eetalk 11:56, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Bruce1ee and Jurbop: Thanks for testing! I've just double checked and it looks like we didn't have ProQuest Literature Online selected. I also wasn't aware that we had access to what EDS notes as "ProQuest Dissertations & Theses" but I see that we have access to almost all of those via ProQuest directly, so I've enabled that too. It might take a moment for that to be reflected in search results. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 14:05, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hey @Samwalton9 (WMF):. At first glance, I'm quite happy with it, turned up a bunch of materials in EBSCO, Gale, etc. that searching Hein alone did not find on searching "Nationality, Eswatini". So it's very helpful for a generic find across multiple sources. Not sure about a specific article search, as I am still gathering material and haven't yet run across something I can't access. No doubt I will and will give it a go. I had the same issue as Bruce1ee with full text finder--took me to a log in page. I like his suggestion about search tips too. SusunW (talk) 13:55, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Samwalton9 (WMF): I just tested Gale ebook with this keyword (Little Sheep Group Ltd) and the first result in the ebook "International Directory of Company Histories. 2014, v. 156" doesn't work (Ebsco Sign In is requested). Note : filters used : "Full text" and "Available to Wikipedia". When I try to find it directly in Gale ebook, it doesn't seem to appear! Maybe Wikipedia access is limited to only a part of the available Gale ebooks? Thanks in advance --Jurbop (talk) 14:45, 26 August 2021 (UTC) Update: I just tested an empty search (maybe prevent this to be possible in order not to slow down their servers?) : "Full Text" alone : 1,113,888,206 results ; "Full Text" + "Available to Wikipedia" : 752,649,818 results (i.e. approx. 67 % of all articles). --Jurbop (talk) 14:52, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Samwalton9 (WMF):, WOW, it's beautiful. What an improvement! It pretty much looks like I expect [hope!] a searchable resource to look like. I have been trying to find alternative references for a topic I'm working on (Metaliteracy) & having very little luck. This search tool uncovered a whole bunch of useful sources. I'm a real novice user so don't have a lot of in-depth (or 'edge') feedback but from a novice perspective, this interface looks not only unintimidating but inviting. Redwidgeon (talk) 18:55, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Samwalton9 (WMF):, looks great!! Searched for "porcelain" without "dental" and got good results, and similar advanced searches. - PKM (talk) 20:17, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Samwalton9 (WMF):, Well, it comes as no surprise ;) it's an EDS instance of the Wikipedia Library plus some Open Access sources (thanks for this!) and it looks rather good. The problems that have already been mentioned above are known issues with any discovery service. DS are no library OPACs or clients for cataloguers, so it is just not possible to do a search for precise terms or for certain items in a data set. DS are there for providing a general overview of a vast amount of data and to suggest resources that might be of interest, but that you have not yet discovered. There is no retrieval language like those most library catalogues understand. So the drill-down features in the user interface are rather important. I have some use cases I cannot search for easily. Say, I would like to have an overview of articles in German, or in French newspapers that match a term, or I would like to see only German or French sources. Maybe the language selector could be placed more prominently in the navigation bar on the left? Currently, it's only available in a window pane I have to open separately. Also, I cannot find a 2016 article on Angela Merkel in Le Monde that comes easily in ProQuest directly when searching for the document title A l'Est, l'école de la prudence or only l'école de la prudence. But, all in all, the EDS solution looks alright and it's a great improvement to the Library. So, many thanks for your effort! Regards, Aschmidt (talk) 10:21, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Samwalton9 (WMF): I searched for 'Heldinnen und keine. Zu Genre und Affekt in Ulli Lusts Heute ist der letzte Tag vom Rest deines Lebens'. A book that we can fully access thanks to Wikpedia Library / De Gruyter (?). I tried different combinations of search terms (like author, title, ISBN), but I could only find the basic data about the book, not the access to the book itself (or see that I have access to the book). In the search results, I could only 'export to Zotero' or 'save to favorites'. In my folder, the option 'Open-Access Full Text' is available, but does not lead me to the book. I get stuck at the API/unpaywall.--Franky Fusion (talk) 14:15, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    It looks like De Gruyter wasn't configured in our holdings because it only got added recently, we're going to do a pass to update this before launching. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 14:55, 21 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Samwalton9 (WMF): This is probably a stupid question, but what does "Available to Wikipedia" mean on the search results screen under "Limit To" in the "Refine Results" column? —Bruce1eetalk 16:01, 11 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    It probably alludes to the Wikipedia Library, not to Wikipedia proper. Regards, Aschmidt (talk) 16:46, 11 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Bruce1ee: Not a stupid question, because I couldn't tell you exactly :) It's something we started trying to configure as a means to enable the ability to broaden the search from Bundle-only to all other searchable collections, but it currently isn't set up properly, and it turns out this may not be the way to do this anyway. We're chatting with EBSCO support about this, and I suspect this checkbox will go away soon. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 09:00, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks. So I can ignore it, for now. —Bruce1eetalk 11:03, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Search update[edit]

@Bruce1ee, Jurbop, SusunW, Redwidgeon, PKM, Aschmidt, and Franky Fusion:

Hi all, thanks for your feedback above, it was really helpful to narrow down the configuration changes we need to make, and highlighted some more work we needed to do before deployment, particularly around displaying which collections were searchable or not. Please check out the new 'searchable' filter on the Staging tool and try out some new searches to see if anything still seems to be missing. Further details below:

We've made changes to our holdings to more accurately reflect the content you should be expecting to see. In particular, De Gruyter and Nomos were missing (as recent additions to the library) and a few others needed to be tweaked to match what we had access to. This did, unfortunately, uncover that ProQuest isn't indexed in EBSCO Discovery Service (likely because they have competing software). We have, however, been able to find a workaround for this - EBSCO are in the process of configuring a search widget which will display on the right-hand side of the search results which duplicates your search in ProQuest. We know that ProQuest is a hugely useful database so hopefully this will reduce the friction and make it easier to search in both places. You'll see that logo in search results already, but it doesn't currently work - we're waiting for EBSCO to make a technical update to fix it. Once that's fixed I think we'll expand that right-hand pane by default so the button is more obvious.

The second major change we've made is to denote in My Library which collections are fully or partially searchable through the centralised search bar. At the moment that's almost all Library Bundle collections. You can adjust the filters on the left hand side to hide searchable content so you know where else you might need to do a search in addition to the centralised search bar. We'd love to know what you think of this - is it clear what these icons mean? Is the feature useful to you?

Thanks again for your input - it's really helped us get this to a place where the wider community will find the update most valuable. I expect to get this update rolled out to the production (normal) library tool in the next week or two, and soon after we'll start rolling out the notification (T288070)! Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 14:23, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Samwalton9 I love the search bar. Just found several sources on my current topic in places I wouldn't have looked. Can't wait for it to go live. Yes, being able to narrow search options is helpful. I note that you say we now have Proquest access. Does this mean that finally, finally we have access to the Associated Negro Press archives? (fingers crossed, holding breath) SusunW (talk) 14:39, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Samwalton9 (WMF): It's looking good. I did several random searches using the search bar for items that I know are available in some of the library bundle collections, and it found them ... except for one. De Gruyter has full access to this book, Changes in the Roman Empire, but searching for it via the search bar doesn't find it. All it finds are reviews of the book, but not the book itself. The key on the left says De Gruyter is fully searchable. Is it possible that De Gruyter in the staging tool is not as up-to-date as the live platform? —Bruce1eetalk 17:27, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Bruce1ee: Thanks for highlighting this - De Gruyter had a wide array of holdings options and we thought we'd got the right one, but perhaps not. We'll look at that again :) Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 09:01, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Samwalton9 (WMF): This search facility is going to be a great help. Take a look at this recent RX request where the requester remarked, "We could do with an index of what's available on Wikipedia Library." I typed "You Americans are murdering the language" into the staging tool search bar, and the first hit it returned was the full text of the article. —Bruce1eetalk 06:34, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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