[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Seeking funding partners for Evergreen search project

[Kathy Lussier]

Hi all,

I'm sending along an update on these search projects that MassLNC would 
like to fund. To get everything started, MassLNC has contracted with 
Equinox to perform work for the first two projects: investigatory work 
for infrastructure improvements for search and development to follow up 
on on the results of that investigatory work.

We are still looking for partners to help us fund the third project: a 
search and display infrastructure project.

This project will change the way we configure indexes for the keyword 
class, allowing us to 'kill the blob' that is currently used as the 
default keyword index. It will also implement the Metabib Display Fields 
development. Expected end results of this project are to 1) Allow sites 
to more easily weight fields in a keyword search 2) Use Metabib Display 
Fields to render the catalog's search results and record detail pages 3) 
Add the ability to use proper case in reports, 4) Add the ability to 
highlight search terms in the search results page and the record details 
page.

Although MassLNC has funds to contribute to the third project, it is a 
large infrastructure project that we cannot fund on our own. If your 
organization is interesting in helping fund improvements to Evergreen 
search, feel free to contact me off list and I'll send details along to you.

Thanks!
Kathy


On 06/13/2016 10:47 AM, Kathy Lussier wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> As you know, MassLNC has been working this year on finding ways to 
> improve search in Evergreen. As a result of several community-wide 
> discussions on search as well as a follow-up meeting with our 
> colleagues at Equinox, we are now looking to fund some projects that 
> we believe will bring improvements to the current Evergreen search.
>
> The projects include:
>
> - investigatory work for infrastructure improvements for search. This 
> is largely a consulting project where Equinox would prototype the 
> elimination of staged search, analyze potential optimizations in newer 
> PostgreSQL releases, and investigate and prototype other relevance 
> improvements.
>
> - a development project to implement the improvements that come out of 
> the investigatory phase of the project.
>
> - a search and display infrastructure project. This project will 
> change the way we configure indexes for the keyword class, allowing us 
> to 'kill the blob' that is currently used as the default keyword 
> index. It will also implement the Metabib Display Fields development. 
> Expected end results of this project are to 1) Allow sites to more 
> easily weight fields in a keyword search 2) Use Metabib Display Fields 
> to render the catalog's search results and record detail pages 3) Add 
> the ability to use proper case in reports, 4) Add the ability to 
> highlight search terms in the search results page and the record 
> details page.
>
> We also hope that this work will lay the groundwork for building a 
> good Did You Mean? enhancement in the future, even though it isn't 
> included in the scope of the current project.
>
> MassLNC is committed to allocating funds towards this work, but the 
> project is complicated, and we are not able to fund it on our own. We 
> are putting out a call to see if there are other Evergreen sites out 
> there that are interested in helping us fund this very important project.
>
> If you would like more information on this project, please send me a 
> direct e-mail, and I will share more details with you.
>
> Thank you!
> Kathy
>

-- 
Kathy Lussier
Project Coordinator
Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative
(508) 343-0128
klussier at masslnc.org
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier