Search is king and results rule

At PPL we are previewing a new version of our website that's been created using Endeca. What in heaven's name is Endeca? Good question!

As far as we can tell it's not a new star cluster in space but a cool new software program that sits on top of our bibliographic database to perform searches easily and quickly. The search feature of our old website was notorious for returning results that were slow, inefficient or just plain wrong.

Endeca has been used in the retail world by giants like Walmart and Barnes and Noble to help customers find items quickly in their mega online stores. That certainly describes a library doesn't it? With over 800,000 items in our catalog, our patrons deserve the best search possible. The only other library application is for Endeca so far is at North Carolina State University.

One thing that makes Endeca unique for library catalogs is that it uses clustering software to dynamically generate ways to narrow your search. Those possibilities are listed along the left hand side of the screen which is quickly becoming a web standard.

That means an NSCU search on "dogs" will bring up a list of books in the center window, but also a list of custom generated possibilities for limiting. Do you want books videos or online sources about dogs? Do you want fiction, handbooks or anecdotes about dogs? Do you want a dog book in English, or in other languages? Endeca only presents options for narrowing when there are options, in fact the options are generated from the results set itself. That makes Endeca unique.


NCSU has gone a step further than we have by adding a Limit to Currently available, a way cool option that we don't have. It's good to dream. PPL's Endeca website will be available for public preview starting January 8th (assuming no major bugs are discovered by staff by then).

We think this will be absolutely awesome for patrons and staff. Librarians love to search but patrons love to find. This should take them to finding heaven.