Web Redesign – New Database Search
Posted: November 6th, 2015As we plan for our new website, one very important feature to plan for is the database search tool. We have tools such as Summon and QCAT to provide access to the majority of our collections, but the database search relies on the functionality of Drupal (our CMS) and needs to be essentially built from the ground up.
While we want to inherit many aspects from our current system, we are taking a look at how we might best improve the search relevancy. Since our current tool already uses title keywords, we want to keep this but add a wider keyword search that would search the title, subjects, and descriptions of our database records all at the same time. We are planning on making this keyword search the default in the new tool as users have come to expect this type of search. We believe this keyword search, in conjunction with the current A-Z and subject indexes, will allow our patrons to more quickly and easily find what they are looking for.
We also want to improve our index results page by including a line a search results summary that shows how many records were matched and what method was used to perform the search (e.g. keyword, subject, or letter of the alphabet).
We are also planning to include a short summary (1-2 lines) describing the databases on the index page. We have noticed this approach is gaining popularity and feel that it is another way to add relevance to our database search results and provide increased context. We plan to keep a full record view of each database, using a “More Info” link like we do now, but we have noticed that many site visitors do not access these pages, preferring to visit the databases directly from the index page.
Lastly, we are examining the possibility of adding a couple of advanced search filters; one for Canadian resources only and one for database type. The databases type would include a dropdown of types of information that the databases contain such as full-text, citations, data sets and statistics, maps, video, etc. These advanced search options would be available as an extension of the basic search field and likely not visible by default.
We believe that these changes will result in a significantly improved database search tool. It is crucial to us that our patrons are able to access these valuable resources in a quick and efficient manner, while also providing enough filtering options to allow more advanced users the ability to refine their searches in a meaningful way.
If you have questions about what we are proposing here, or suggestions on how we might improve our database search tool, please let us know at library@queensu.ca.
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