MnPALS Plus

MnPALS Plus FAQ

MnPALS Plus is an open-source "discovery tool" based on VUFind. A “discovery tool” is an application or group of applications working together in a “presentation” layer between end users (students, faculty, public) and the integrated library system (ILS; in our case, Aleph). Most ILS’s have poor OPAC environments, so the idea is to create a better OPAC for users. MnPALS Plus extracts the bibliographic data from the ILS (usually daily is sufficient), reformats it to optimize performance, and stores it in its own database.

Linking or Implementing MnPALS Plus

1. You can link to http://plus.mnpals.net
2. Use the following URL to bring up the search screen with a particular library selected. The url is:
   http://plus.mnpals.net/?library=XXX
   where XXX is the 3 letter ADM code. It can be upper or lower case.
3. You can include a search box on your web site that would link directly to MnPALS plus.

• Replace the XXX with your capitalized 3 letter ADM code.
• If you just want an "all" search you can make the "type" field hidden with a value of "all"
• The form for this box would be:

<form method="GET" action="http://plus.mnpals.net/vufind/Search/Home" name="searchForm">
   <input type="text" name="lookfor" size="30" value="">
   <select name="type">
     <option value="all">All Fields</option>
     <option value="title">Title</option>
     <option value="author">Author</option>
     <option value="subject">Subject</option>
     <option value="isn">ISBN/ISSN</option>
   </select>
   <input type="hidden" name="library" value="XXX">
   <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Find">
 </form>

History of the MnPALS Plus Project

A team at the Falvey Memorial Library at Villanova University developed VUFind as a next-generation library search interface. (VUFind Home Page). VUFind was released as an open source product on June 20, 2007. VUFind is licensed under the terms of the GPL (GNU General Public License), which allow others to freely download and make use of the software, as well as to participate in its development, fix bugs and extend its features, provided those changes are also contributed as open source. [1]

VUFIND is open-source software with approximately a dozen sites using it. A community of users is working to provide features, and troubleshoot technical issues.

The architecture was better with more features. A larger community is working on this product than others the PALS staff looked at.

Rollout planned for August 15, 2008.

PALS is committed to providing an improved user interface for the long term. MnPALS Plus is the first step in providing this. PALS will continue to improve it and as additional functionality is suggested by library users and staff, PALS will work to implement it for all libraries as long as funding is available and the users feel it is worthwhile. It is impossible to tell at this time whether this VUFind-based tool is a long term solution or other, better solutions will appear in the future.

The PALS staff are still working on:

• Placing holds
• Placing interlibrary loan (ILL) requests
• Tag searching
• Customizing the "Ask a Librarian" link
• Compatability with RefWorks

Library users should report bugs or make suggestions to their local library staff. Library staff should send questions, bug reports to the PALS Support Center.

Questions of interest to Deans, Directors and Coordinators

The R&D efforts have so far been underwritten by MnSCU IT project money, so we are not planning to charge extra for this at this time. PALS has applied for additional project money for this year, so we hope that will be able to continue development using project funds again this year. Also, we will be looking at whether we can provide this to customers outside the Consortium for a fee. Still, if in the future it comes to a point that were are not getting project funds or outside revenue to cover continued operations and development of this product, we might have to come back to MnSCU or the membership for additional financial support.

Questions of interest to library users (functionality)

Some of the features include:

• Search with faceted results. The system allows the user to search from a basic search box and then to be able to narrow the results by clicking on the various facets (format, author, topic, language, genre, era, region) of the results.
• Search is "Googlized."
• The individual record displays the live circulation status.
• When viewing a record, the user will be offered suggestions of resources that are similar to the current resource. (“Similar Items" resource suggestions.)
• Users can save the resources from both the search results page and from the record view page to their own customizable lists.
• Users can browse the catalog allowing them to explore what the library has rather than only being able to see a very narrow set of results.
• Author Biographies, provided by Wikipedia: The user can learn more about the author by clicking on the author’s name, as well as see all of the books by that author in the library.
• Stem searches on subject headings, e.g. Novelists, American -- 20th century -- Biography.
• Automatic searching of word stems, e.g. tree and trees; clown, clowns, clowned, clowning
• Web 2.0 features, e.g. tagging, ability to add comments/reviews to a record, RSS feeds.
• Creation of citations.

Although it will work fine in most browsers, most of the testing has been done with Firefox versions 2 and 3. There have been some formatting quirks reported with Internet Explorer, but the major functionality seems to work just fine.

MnPALS Plus FAQ, PALS Support Center Knowledge Base.

This is a Web 2.0 product which uses Javascript (needs further testing)

Yes, MnPALS Plus supports persistent URLs (permalinks). This allows the user to bookmark their queries or records to allow access to a page they were once on.

Hot link occurs within the bib record for subject headings, authors, titles, series, tags.

A button to place a HOLD is available on the individual record screen.

Just logon using your Aleph logon (library barcode and password).

You can limit searches to your ADM and then use the facets to further limit the searches.

Using the facets.

Questions of interest to library staff (behind the scenes stuff)

A usability test was created by MnPALS Discovery Tool Task Force. The task force will coordinate testing during the first several weeks of the roll out. (Reference Yale usability test URL)

A separate database containing a copy of the ALEPH bibliographic data. It is updated daily.

The individual record displays the live circulation status, retrieved via an Aleph X-Services call.

Keyword indexing mimics the keyword indexes in the MnPALS ALEPH catalog.

It searches multiple indexes boosting the relevance for some indexes. Word stemming is applied. It returns the result sets ranked by relevance. Implied AND.

Yes.

These are being developed by member libraries.

They can be used alone or both can be used.

Only the institution logo will be customized for individual libraries.

There is no plan for customizable displays per institution. Suggestions for customization may be submitted to the Discovery Tools Task Force.

The Basic search interface is a keyword search. When looking at the bib record, the author, series, and subject are linked; these are exact searches.

If a record has a STA field of ACQ-ORDERED it is included, the existence of any other STA field excludes it from the database.

Daily updates are done. Complete reloads are done as needed.

MnPALS Plus includes faceted searching, 'Did you mean' for spell check, similar items, faster searching, tagging, patron comments.

The Aleph OPAC includes additional search options, more robust indexing, and is better suited for searching for a very specific item.

Book covers come from Google.

Report it to your local library. The library staff should submit a report to PALS or Google.

STA=ACQ-ORDERED will be included in the display as "on order". All other records with a STA field are excluded.