The Best of Both Worlds or the
End of the World as We Know It?
A Usability Approach to the Cross-Product CrossIdeology Discovery Interface Finna
IGeLU 2014
Anna Pienimäki & Aleksi Turpeinen
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
Contents
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What is Finna?
Finna Architecture – a Library Perspective
Usability Challenges in Finna
Demo
Questions
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
What is Finna?
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
The Finnish National Digital Library (NDL)
 Project funded by the Ministry of Education
 The aim of the NDL project is to ensure
 high standard management,
 accessibility via the discovery interface Finna, and
 secure preservation of electronic materials of Finnish culture
 Collaborating organisations, that is, Finnish libraries,
museums and archives, work jointly to preserve the national
heritage in a digital format and make it accessible for all.
 NDL is part of the development of national electronic services
and infrastructures.
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Finna – a short history
 To Primo or not to Primo?
 Evaluation period 2010-2012
 Not ready for a large consortium environment
 Finnish libraries, museums, and archives
 Multiple data formats
 MARC21, Dublin Core
 LIDO
 EAD
 …
 Various types of patron functionalities
 Highly skilled in-house programming team with skills in library
systems, agile development and knowledge in context areas
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Finna – the treasures of Finnish culture
 Finna discovery interface
 Based on the open source discovery service VuFind
 Developed in-house at the National Library of Finland
 National view (www.finna.fi)
 Access to national cultural data harvested into the local index
 Roughly 100 organisations have been harvested into test index
 51 organisations in production
 Organisation views (masto.finna.fi, museot.finna.fi etc)
 Local index
 Integration of Ex Libris PCI, SFX, and MetaLib
 Authorised access to licensed materials such as journal articles,
ejournals and ebooks
 Configurable to meet the organisational needs
 8 in production, more coming up soon!
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Finna Architecture - a Library
Perspective
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THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
Local Content
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Local Content
 Materials provided by Finnish memory organisations
harvested using OAI-PMH interface
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Library catalogues
Finnish repositories
Lists of ejournals and ebooks
Databases and ejournals licensed by FinELib (the Finnish
National Electronic Library) harvested from MetaLib and SFX
 Local content is available for search and delivery for every
user
 Efficient search tools
 Developed and administered by the National Library of
Finland
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Primo Central Index
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Primo Central Index
 Contains the main body of licensed materials acquired by the
Finnish libraries via FinELib
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Journal articles
eJournals
eBooks
Other references and citations
Hundreds of collections available
References and citations provided by various publishers
Update cycle varies depending on the publisher
Some collections are restricted to authorised users only
Ex Libris SFX link resolver is used to locate and access full
texts
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Nelli meta search
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Nelli meta search
 Integrated meta search service providing access to
 Journal articles
 eBook collections
 Other references and citations
 Powered by Ex Libris MetaLib
 Access to MetaLib using X-services
 Needed for collections not included in PCI
 Customisable search sets some of which may be restricted to
authorised users only
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Combined View
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
Combined View
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Top ten results from both of the indices (Local content, PCI)
Access to both indices for more results
Services such as add to favourites
However, facets not available due to incompatible filtering
options
 Optional feature – each organisation can choose whether or
not to include the view into their organisational Finna
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
Search first, filter later
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Commonly used approach in Google, Amazon etc.
One simple search box
The full results list can be narrowed down using facets
Pros
 Faster access to results using one simple search field
 Quick snippet of the most relevant results given immediately
 Filtering options are narrowed down based on actual results
 Cons
 One simple search box is often not enough for heavy users and
very specific needs
 A need of more advanced search options
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Usability Challenges in Finna
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Two (three) indices, two (three) results lists
 To blend or not to blend, that is the question!
 Incompatible advanced search options – the same search tools
and criteria are not available in the indices.
 Incompatible filtering options – filtering based on certain
parameters will filter out all contents of the other index.
 Incompatible relevance ranking scales and algorithms – blending
in blocks might lead into false relevance order.
 Possible solution:
 Common search box to access both of the indices
 Two tabs, two main results lists (+ one extra tab for meta search)
 Combined view for the most relevant results of the both indices
 TODO: More comprehensive usability testing of blended
results list needed
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Hello gorgeous, what is your name?
 Contents of the indices overlap somewhat
 eBooks and repositories
 Finding suitable names for the indices / tabs has proven to be
extremely difficult.
 How to find the most relevant content?
 Solution:
 The name should describe the contents as accurately as
possible without being too complex.
 A brand inside a brand, as a tab name, confuses the user.
 In Finna, the organisations have the possibility to name the tabs
as they prefer.
 Various types of libraries as customers, various needs and contents
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Restricted content
 Primo Central Index (and MetaLib) contains both restricted
and open content
 Delivery (and sometimes search) of restricted content requires
authorisation.
 The results lists differ based on whether or not the user has been
authorised (either by logging in or being inside organisation’s IP
range).
 Not all login methods available in Finna authorise the user.
 Solution:
 We guide the users to authorise themselves when showing the
results.
 To ensure the access to all restricted content by one login, we
make use of proxy settings when creating outbound links.
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How to bring meta search into mix?
 Not all licensed content is in PCI, so we sometimes need
meta searches, as well
 Meta searches are slow compared to indexed content
 No relevant filtering options available
 Solution:
 We use Ajax to inform the users about ongoing search process
 The default set can be customised by the customer organisation
to contain the most relevant content not available in other
indices.
 We provide a list of databases harvested from the organisation’
MetaLib instance to access and search the native interfaces
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Usability Design
 Usability development is a continuing process that requires
iteration
 User interface design often requires re-design based on user
feedback to make the software more efficient and intuitive for all
user groups.
 Both objective and subjective feedback is needed
 Usability tests (including e.g. observation, recording, thinking aloud)
 Heuristic evaluation
 Testing prototypes
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Usability tests in Finna
 What has been done?
 1 usability test by a professional company
 1 broad accessibility test by students of user centered design
 3 smaller studies researching the behaviour of actual users
designed and executed by students of user centered design
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Usability tests in Finna
 What next?
 Contextual research with researchers (heavy users)
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Structured interview
Structured usability test
Focuses on library and academic content search
Outputs:
 User scenarios
 Descriptions of databases and user behaviour relevant to each
discipline
 Smaller usability studies in co-operation with students /
universities or companies specialised in user experience
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Towards successful library services
 Usability design is an important part of service design
 Searching library databases is one step in the process towards
successful user experience in library services.
 Finding a book online might still require an actual visit to the
library. This visit is at least equally important when users form
their subjective opinion on library services!
 To ensure a good user and service experience, each step on
the service string should fulfill the user needs!
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DEMO: samk.finna.fi
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Questions?
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Thank you!
Anna Pienimäki & Aleksi Turpeinen
The National Library of Finland
anna.pienimaki@helsinki.fi
aleksi.turpeinen@helsinki.fi
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services