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5856 results in Facet Publishing

Page 265 of 293

  • 8 - Desktop search

  • Martin White
  • Book:
    Making Search Work
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    18 March 2007, pp 89-94

  • Summary

    In this chapter:

    ■ What are the benefits of desktop search?

    ■ What to look for when selecting a desktop search product

    ■ A list of 22 desktop search products

    Introduction

    The rate of growth in the storage capacity of desktop PCs has been quite extraordinary, with the standard hard drive in a PC being 160 Gb; even in a laptop the standard capacity is 40 Gb. At the same time the number and size of documents being created and stored on a local drive has been increasing at a similar rate – a sort of electronic Parkinson's Law that states that the volume of documents increases to match the memory capacity available. Marshalling all this information into a folder structure is well beyond the capabilities of most of us, as the sheer rate of change in business requires new folders and files to be created without leaving any time to reorganize the existing array. The end result is that it is impossible to find all relevant documents (including e-mails) when responding to a request for information or commencing work on a new document.

    Windows XP does have a search feature, but this string-searches files and is a very slow process. For several years there have been indications that Microsoft was planning to launch a more sophisticated search feature in its Longhorn desktop product. This is now called Vista, and by the time this book is published more information should be available on this feature.

    Ahead of this a number of the public web search companies launched desktop search software that would build an index of the documents on a hard drive, with Yahoo! and Google being among the early leaders. Over the last two years many other companies have joined the market, and there is now a wide range of products available; these are listed in Table 8.1. These all enable users to index files on their own PCs and laptops, and also on shared public drives.

  • Preface

  • Martin White
  • Book:
    Making Search Work
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    18 March 2007, pp xiii-xvi

  • Summary

    Over the last few years search has come centre-screen, thanks largely to Google, a company less than ten years old but with a market capitalization that is already 30% of that of Microsoft. Entering just one or two words into the search box is the entry point to relevant websites containing billions of pages of information. It all seems so easy. Look behind the scenes and you begin to realize the scale of the operation and the degree of innovation. The applied mathematics of Google takes a book to begin to comprehend, and then there are probably a million or more servers located in secure bunkers. There is a similar story behind Yahoo! and Microsoft, and the other public web search services. The result is that the public web search services do a remarkably good job in sifting through millions of websites to highlight those that could be of some relevance.

    By comparison, searching for information in the digital repositories inside organizations is usually very difficult, with employees having lost faith in their intranet because of ineffective search, and visitors to the organization's website are hindered rather than helped by the search functionality. A search for the term ‘intranet’ on a UK central government website returned files with titles that included File30958, Microsoft Word – errs32.doc, file 22013, Business Case and Sarah in the top ten relevant documents.

    It is an often-quoted suggestion that 80% of the information created by an organization is unstructured. Whatever the real answer is, there is now a general concern that the rate of growth is so great that the problems of finding specific information are now among the most serious challenges faced by an organization of any size. Many organizations have adopted content management software to manage the addition of content into websites and intranets, but have found that the distributed authorship that this software encourages makes information discovery even more difficult.

  • 10 - Implementing search for an intranet

  • Martin White
  • Book:
    Making Search Work
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    18 March 2007, pp 105-112

  • Summary

    In this chapter:

    ■ A ten-step procedure that will ensure effective intranet search implementation

    The ten-step process to implementing intranet search

    Although the basic principles for selecting an intranet search engine are the same as for a web search engine, there are some important differences and hence the steps are somewhat different:

    Step 1 What will be the benefits to employees?

    Step 2 Consider the technical options

    Step 3 Develop and obtain approval for a business case

    Step 4 Write a project plan

    Step 5 Define a test document set

    Step 6 Scope the user interface

    Step 7 Select a vendor

    Step 8 Install and test for usability

    Step 9 Optimize search performance

    Step 10 Have a development strategy.

    Step 1 What will be the benefits to employees?

    Arguably the expectations of employees are much higher than those of a visitor to a website. There is often an alternative website, but in most organizations that have an intranet this is the default information platform, and contains (at least in theory) all the core information an employee needs to meet organizational and personal objectives. The primary role of an intranet is to enable better decisions to be made. Certainly there is a subsidiary role in being a communications channel, but the business case for investing resources in an intranet is increasingly about supporting tasks. Whereas with a website hyperlinks are an important way of supporting information discovery, the scale of an intranet, the diversity of the content and the number of contributors means that hyperlinks are not as rigorously implemented and managed as they are in good websites. There should be no excuse for poorly implemented search in an intranet, as the search function has to make up for the inevitable weaknesses in hyperlinks.

    Compared to website statistics, similar information for an intranet, even when it is available, is much less helpful, though of course if the site already has a search engine then the search logs should be carefully reviewed. In the case of an intranet, its future development within the overall information management strategy of the organization must be considered from the outset.

  • 1 - Search must work

  • Martin White
  • Book:
    Making Search Work
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    18 March 2007, pp 1-12

  • Summary

    In this chapter:

    The evidence that search can have a significant impact on business performance

    ■ A brief history of the development of search technology

    ■ Understanding how people go about searching

    ■ The potential for the role of information discovery manager

    Searching but not finding

    In July 2005 the Quarterly Survey from McKinsey Consulting1 reported on the Global Executive Survey that the company had conducted among 7800 executives in 132 countries, a fifth of them at Chief Executive Officer (CEO) or Chief Information Officer (CIO) level. Overall, 29% of CEO/CIO-level respondents and 40% of other senior managers reported that it was difficult to find information on which to make company-wide decisions. This is a very worrying finding. Companies are flying blind, and making highly risky decisions without being able to find information that they have already created and stored.

    Among many others was a survey carried out in 2004 by Vascom Bourne on behalf of Inxight Software among IT Directors in the UK financial services sector. According to the survey:

  • ■ 73% of respondents said that the main barrier knowledge workers face in sharing corporate information was not being able to use one information retrieval tool to capture data across several repositories.

  • ■ 58% of respondents also said that their company's search tools were ineffective at sourcing information quickly and efficiently.

  • ■ 66% of the companies interviewed said employees were regenerating information simply because they were unaware that the documents already existed.

    • For a number of years Susan Feldman and her colleagues in the Content Management and Retrieval Solutions research group of IDC (International Data Corporation)2 have been surveying the time taken to undertake a range of office tasks. Their latest analysis indicates that, on average, an office worker spends 9.5 hours a week searching for information, but, of this time, 3.5 hours is wasted in not being able to find the information required. As a result, either this information has to be recreated or a decision must be made on the basis of inadequate information.

  • 9 - Implementing web search

  • Martin White
  • Book:
    Making Search Work
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    18 March 2007, pp 95-104

  • Summary

    In this chapter:

    ■ A ten-step procedure that will ensure effective web search implementation

    Introduction

    Although good web design will assist site visitors to find the information they want through navigation aids and hyperlinks, visitors also expect to be able to search the site. The extent to which there is value in implementing search does depend on the content of the site and the way in which visitors will wish to locate information on it. Adding a search function because of concerns that visitors are not able to use the navigation, and hyperlinking to locate content without an overall consideration of the information architecture of the site, is not the optimal approach. It could well be that search enables the navigation itself to be revised and optimized, removing layers of hierarchy, because search is clearly positioned as a way to find information in document libraries that may well improve the usability of the site to other users.

    Search is especially important in e-commerce sites, where there is product- or service-related information. One of the issues in such sites is not just the ability of the search feature to locate products, but also to be able to provide a range of ranking opportunities, such as price, size, colour, and other attributes. Any failure in metadata tagging could result in the product being found in the initial search but not when a ranked list is requested.

    As a result faceted search is especially useful in e-commerce applications, and one of the best examples is that of the wine retailer www.wine.com. The Librarian's Internet Index (www.lii.org/), The Gateway (www.thegateway.org/) and the Oracle Press Navigator site (http://pressroom.oracle.com/) are all examples of the Siderean's Seamark Navigator product. There are also a number of search vendors that specialize in e-commerce applications, and these are listed in the Appendix.

    The ten-step process to implementing web search

    The ten steps are:

    Step 1 What will be the benefits to site visitors?

    Step 2 Consider the technical options

    Step 3 Develop and obtain approval for a business case

    Step 4 Write a project plan

    Step 5 Agree the outline search parameters

    Step 6 Design review

    Step 7 Revise the content

    Step 8 Select a vendor

    Step 9 Install and test for usability

    Step 10 Review and revise.

  • Appendix - Search software vendors

  • Martin White
  • Book:
    Making Search Work
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    18 March 2007, pp 143-158

  • Summary

    In this section:

    Brief profiles have been provided of nearly 40 search vendors. This is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all vendors, nor does it imply any endorsement by the author or Intranet Focus Ltd. The companies with the notation ESR are those listed in the 2006 edition of the CMS Watch Enterprise Search Report

    Active Navigation

    www.activenavigation.com

    HQ: Southampton, UK

    Initially founded under the name Multicosm Ltd, Active Navigation has its roots in the research carried out at the University of Southampton into the structure of navigation, innovative models of hypertext, and the thematic analysis of text using linguistic and statistical techniques. The company is privately owned.

    Arikus

    www.arikus.com

    HQ: Toronto, Canada

    Arikus was set up in 1997 as an information management consultancy. The core of the Arikus products is the Arikus Information Refinery Engine, AIRE. The software is priced very competitively, with an enterprise licence for up to 3 million documents being priced at $19,995. There is also a developer version for incorporation into specific enterprise applications.

    Atomz (ESR)

    www.websidestory.com

    HQ: San Diego, California, USA

    Atomz was the trading name of Avivo corporation, which was founded in 1996 with the objective of offering outsourced content management solutions. It moved into search solutions and in February 2005. was acquired by WebSideStory. The revenues of WebSideStory are around $70m.

    Autonomy Corporation (ESR)

    www.autonomy.com

    HQ: Cambridge, UK

    Autonomy was founded by Dr Michael Lynch OBE and Richard Gaunt in 1996 as a means of commercializing the work that they had carried out on the use of Bayesian statistics to underpin pattern recognition as a search technology. In 2005 the company acquired Verity Inc. for $502m, and in so doing became the largest search-specific software vendor. Autonomy had ready acquired etalk Corp. Autonomy is continuing to support all current versions of K2, as well as developing the latest and future generations of K2, to be known as IDOL K2. The company has stated that it intends to continue support of K2, and that the first release (K2 IDOL 7) will be usable by customers at their discretion, either as a standalone product or in a new mode running as a part of the IDOL infrastructure.

  • 13 - Future directions

  • Martin White
  • Book:
    Making Search Work
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    18 March 2007, pp 135-142

  • Summary

    In this chapter:

    ■ What direction will the search industry take?

    ■ How important is innovation by Google and Microsoft?

    ■ Convergence of search and business intelligence

    ■ Social software and search

    One of the themes of this book has been the need to plan ahead, to assess what the needs of the organization will be in the years to come, so that the best strategic fit can be made between the requirements of the organization and the implementation of a search engine, whether for a website, the desktop, one or more intranets, or for enterprise-wide search. This chapter takes the risky approach of trying to suggest the directions that search technology will take in the future. A reader looking at this chapter even a year or so after publication may well be amused rather than informed.

    Having spent over ten years in the business of high-technology market forecasting I look back on some of the reports that I wrote over that time and can now scarcely credit the astounding rate of progress that has been achieved, especially in the area of price–performance.

    So, here are some predictions for the future, in the hope that, if nothing else, they will make you, the reader, focus on what is happening in the areas I have highlighted, and draw your own interpretation and vision.

    Search is going to be a big business

    Most IT markets grow on an S-curve, with a number of early adopters who then act as validation for the technology and its initial applications. After that there is a more general uptake, which is rarely truly exponential. Even though computer-based search has been available for over 40 years, its adoption by organizations is still in the very early stages. We are still at the very beginning of the S-curve, and the main reason for this is not that the technology did not work but that there was no identifiable market.

    Now that market is beginning to exist. The advent of content management software to enable websites to be created and managed more easily, the total inability of organizations to find anything in e-mail servers, the widespread use of shared drives, the ubiquity of Microsoft SharePoint and the demands for compliance solutions are just a few of the drivers for this market.

  • 2 - How search works

  • Martin White
  • Book:
    Making Search Work
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    18 March 2007, pp 13-30

  • Summary

    In this chapter:

    An explanation of how search software works

    ■ The differences between ranking, relevance, precision and recall

    ■ The value of a taxonomy

    ■ How to ensure that document confidentiality is not compromised by a search engine

    Introduction

    In order to evaluate and implement a search application it is important to understand the basic elements of search technology, which form the basis of both search software and search application products. There are a number of distinct elements in the process, from capturing content to presenting it within a browser on demand:

  • ■ content definition

  • ■ indexing

  • ■ query management

  • ■ ranking of results

  • ■ results formatting

  • ■ document access.

    • The challenge in selecting a search application is that every vendor carries out these processes in a slightly different way. Understanding the similarities and differences between the products on the market is important in ensuring that user requirements are fully accommodated. A good understanding of search technology is also important when it comes to implementing and ‘tuning’ a search engine. There will be a continuing need to look at the types of search being carried out, and the results they obtain, and then changing various elements of the search process (especially the way in which ranking is carried out) to ensure that users obtain the maximum number of relevant results.

    Content definition

    The initial task is to define the content that needs to be searched, and hence indexed. For smaller applications the index is generated on the server that also contains the content to be indexed, a common situation with website searching. The search query is then run against this index. However, the index to a set of documents may typically be between 15 and 50% of the file size of the content collection and querying the index also requires a substantial amount of processing.

    As a result the indexes and query management are accomplished on a separate server. A number of options are then available.

  • 10 - Personal and professional development

  • Barbara Allan
  • Book:
    Supervising and Leading Teams in ILS
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2006, pp 177-196

  • Summary

    Introduction

    The purpose of this chapter is to explore practical approaches to personal growth and development. This is vital if you are to provide effective team leadership or supervision particularly if you are working in a challenging and turbulent environment. Individuals who are effective team leaders and supervisors are often very clear about who they are and what they want to get out of their work as well as other aspects of their lives. They are likely to pay attention to the topics covered in this chapter which include looking after yourself; work/life balance; time management; personal and career support; professional networks and communities of practice; and personal portfolios.

    Looking after yourself

    Team leaders and supervisors are likely to experience a range of challenges in the workplace, e.g. demanding workload, information overload, initiative overload, issues arising from individual team members or customers, new ways of working in a team, new working practices and/or technical innovations. As a result it is important to be able to manage yourself in the workplace so that you can lead your team in a relatively stress-free manner.

    Key aspects of looking after yourself in the workplace may include:

  • • Know your own work peaks and troughs. Most people have times of the day when they are full of energy and other times when their energy is low. For example some people are at their best in the morning (larks) while others are afternoon or evening people (owls). If you know your best times and you are able to organize when you carry out your work then it makes sense to do your most demanding work when your energy levels are at their highest.

  • • Have tea breaks and lunch breaks. Eat healthy food.

  • • When you have a break, if possible get away from your desk and get some fresh air.

  • • Keep your working environment clean, tidy and uncluttered (see Chapter 5).

  • • Use time-management techniques (see summary in Figure 10.1).

  • • Speak to colleagues if you feel overwhelmed.

  • • Use breaks to network with colleagues.

  • Introduction

  • Barbara Allan
  • Book:
    Supervising and Leading Teams in ILS
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2006, pp xv-xvii

  • Summary

    The aim of this book is to provide a practical guide for new and aspiring team leaders and supervisors. The book covers the main areas of concern for new team leaders and supervisors, and it is also relevant to experienced practitioners who wish to refresh their approach to managing teams.

    This book is based on information and knowledge obtained and developed from:

  • • my experiences as a team leader in academic and workplace information and library units

  • • my experiences in teamwork as an independent consultant and trainer

  • • feedback from colleagues attending my workshops run through professional associations such as CILIP and ASLIB/IMI in the UK

  • • visits (both real and virtual) to a wide range of information and library services (ILS)

  • • professional networks and conferences, and also the literature.

    • The book is not intended as a prescriptive guide to leading and supervising teams. It presents well tested and current approaches to teamwork and a range of examples and case studies, and these are meant to demonstrate current practice in a wide range of information and library units. After reading this book or dipping into it, I hope that you will use the tools and techniques that are most relevant to your professional context. Each topic is covered in a practical and down-to-earth manner. Although references are made to relevant theories the main focus of this book is on the practice of leading and supervising teams; it is very much a ‘how to …’ guide for supervisors and team leaders. Some chapters include self-assessment audits to enable you to consider and reflect upon your knowledge and skills. There are also a number of activities and the purpose of these is to help you to relate the content of each chapter to your own work situation. Individual chapters conclude with a list of references and the book ends with a guide to further reading and a brief index.

    Chapter 1 provides an overview of working as a supervisor or team leader. This includes understanding the role and the responsibilities of team leaders and supervisors. This chapter includes an audit tool which you may use to reflect on and think about your knowledge and skills with respect to leading and supervising teams.

Supervising and Leading Teams in ILS
  • Barbara Allan
  • Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2006
  • Anyone wishing to be a successful supervisor must learn the interpersonal skills of communication, assertiveness and motivation in order to build a successful team with a positive ethos. This book provides a practical guide to supervisory skills for team leaders and supervisors in library and information work. Although reference is made to relevant management concepts, its strength is that it translates theory into practice, and the focus is decidedly on the latter. This is very much a 'how to' guide for anyone wishing to develop a supervisory role in an ILS context. Each topic is covered in a practical and down-to-earth manner, and is illustrated by examples and case studies from different types of ILS. The text also offers self-assessment audits and other activities to enable the reader to relate the tools and techniques to their own work situation. Key topics covered are: the role of team leader in ILS; leading and managing the team; confident leadership and supervision; the psychology of motivation; managing the work; communication skills; managing and leading complex teams; human resource management; workplace learning and training; and, personal and professional development. This is an essential tool for new and aspiring supervisors and team leaders in ILS, and for more experienced supervisors who wish to dip into it to refresh their approach. It will also be of great value to ILS students.

  • 5 - Managing the work

  • Barbara Allan
  • Book:
    Supervising and Leading Teams in ILS
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2006, pp 69-96

  • Summary

    Introduction

    This chapter is concerned with managing the work in your team. This includes creating an appropriate working environment so that the information and library service both looks professional and is also a pleasant working environment. This chapter considers ways of managing both types of work experienced in an ILS: routine work and project work. It also considers issues relevant to both routine and project work, i.e. delegating tasks, giving instructions, giving feedback, setting goals and monitoring and reviewing performance.

    Managing the work environment

    The physical work environment, i.e. the organization and layout of the public and staff areas in the ILS, will have an impact on everyone coming into the service. Individuals will judge your ILS on the basis of what they see. If they come into an environment where everything looks tidy, notices are up-to-date and welcoming, and there is the sense of stepping into a professional workspace then they are likely to feel positive about the ILS. Conversely, if the ILS looks disorganized with outof- date notices, old computers cluttering up corners, dying plants in dark corners, staff desks heaped with piles of paper and used coffee cups, then potential readers are unlikely to feel confident about the quality of service. In addition, there are health and safety factors to be taken into account in organizing the work environment: a well organized and tidy environment is likely to be a safe environment.

    Managing the work environment involves everyone taking responsibility for their own working space and the public areas of the ILS. Many team leaders ensure that individual members of staff have responsibility for specific aspects of maintaining the physical environment and tasks such as tidying book shelves, notice boards, organizing and maintaining the stationery store, and checking that computers are working.

    Ways of providing a professional-looking ILS involve ensuring:

  • • tidy and up-to-date notice boards

  • • effective and up-to-date guiding

  • • temporary guiding produced to a good standard

  • • tidy shelves

  • • reader areas checked and tidied at regular intervals

  • • public computers and printers checked regularly

  • • tidy and uncluttered help desks

  • • everything labelled and in the most appropriate place

  • • absence of food and drink in all public areas

  • • providing a ‘trophy’ wall where photographs, e.g. of visitors to the service, awards and other accolades are displayed to anyone coming to the service.

Page 265 of 293