University of Michigan Library's Search Matches Patrons with Specialists, Locations, Services
By David Rapp Jul 29, 2010When patrons do a search on the University of Michigan (UM) Library website, they get a list of results from the library catalog, the online journal collection, and other databases. But they also get the names, photos, and contact information of UM librarians who specialize in the subject at issue, as well as links to relevant on-campus locations or library services.
LJ talked with Ken Varnum, the web systems manager at the UM Library, who wrote a blog post on the BLT Blog for Library Technology this week publicizing this creative feature.
How it works
The UM Library uses a database which matches Library of Congress call numbers to various academic disciplines. The call numbers of the first 100 results in a search are matched to these disciplines, and if more than 25 items fall into a specific area of expertise, a specialist is included in the results.
Keywords also have been added that produce results including buildings on campus or other library services. For example, a search on the word "biology" will yield pictures and contact information for two UM science librarians, as well as information on UM's Shapiro Science Library. Search for "interlibrary loan," and a specialist in library science will pop up, as well as links to ILL service within UM and with other libraries.
Curiosity grows
Varnum told LJ that this search functionality has quietly been part of the UM Library site since it launched nearly a year ago. At conferences, he has invariably gotten questions about how it worked—which finally prompted the blog post.
The concept of adding specialist information to searches emerged as the site was being developed, Varnum said.
He credited UM engineering librarian David Carter with the idea of using already-existing call-number and academic discipline information to go about it. (UM's call-number-to-academic-discipline mapping is available here.)
Working out the kinks
How often do patrons use the service and contact the specialist librarians? "We haven't been tracking that in any way, formally or informally," Varnum told LJ, but he says that he has noticed that patrons have been clicking on links to specialists' online profiles from search results, which he said is "a good start."
Reaction from UM librarians has generally been positive, though when the idea was first hatched a year ago, Varnum said, a few of them were wary. What if subjects didn't match specialists correctly, or the number of queries became unmanageable? Varnum said that by adjusting the number of search hits required to match with a specialist, such problems have been avoided.
There remain a few snags—the wrong specialist will still occasionally pop up—but Varnum has been making minor tweaks over the past year, in an ongoing effort to continue matching patrons with the right librarians.
