LibraryFind. yet another Open Source tool

While surfing for some interesting OPAC’s, or open source catalog enhancements, I came across a blog that mentioned LibraryFind. LibraryFind is the open source Meta-Search tool developed by the Oregon State Libraries to help their users find the information they want in a more timely fashion. On their about page they highlight the following goals of their project.

FASTER

Always working to set the federated search speed record

BETTER

Open source - extensible, extendable, understandable

EASIER

Two clicks - one click to find, one click to get.

I don’t feel qualified to really comment on the first one, though I was impressed with the speed of their results, and I’m already a convert to the second one, so I’ll focus on the third.

It has always driven me a bit crazy having to have several windows or tabs open in browsers, while jumping from database to database to opac, in trying to help find relevant articles and books for undergraduate researchers. Then, having to try and explain all the different search styles for each resource, and wasting their time in teaching them that. The LibraryFind search tool is clean and simple. Essentially what it does is it interfaces with their opac as well as their journal databases and presents the results. One can then sort the results by relevance or date. Both journal articles and books are presented in the results, and one just has to click on the record for the article to be able to retrieve it. This one stop shopping feature is extremely appealing to me. No more getting lost in the jumping from window to window. I also like the fact that it will often give a brief description of the article as part of the record.

I realize that there are other meta search packages available, but since this one is open source, I will be rooting for it. According to several blogs, it appears that the University of Houston will be/ or is beta testing LibraryFind. The appeal of open source besides being free, is that everybody is posting on how they got LibraryFind to interface with their various opacs and journal databases. Not having to rely on a vendor and their support team can make this an extremely attractive option for smaller libraries and poorer ones. Also, as more and more libraries take on these packages, it will require less work and allow for possibly greater sharing of certain resources making everybody, except certain vendors, a winner.

Finally, it does appear that it needs some work, but that may be due more to the resources that Oregon State has access to than the actual interface. I did a quick search on Residential Segregation, in both Google Scholar and in LibraryFind, and was able to find many more articles, including all the classic ones, in Google Scholar. Still, I think I prefer the layout and ease of use of LibraryFind, and hope that it catches on with more libraries.