Below you will find answers to some of the most commonly asked questions when using the new federated search service – SuperSearch.
FAQs last updated 26th March 2008
If you have any other questions about using SuperSearch please email me.
Will databases which are not currently cross-searchable (e.g. Swetswise) be included in future? If so, when will this happen?
Serials Solutions merged with another federated search company, called WebFeat, in February. WebFeat have their own library of connectors, and it has recently been confirmed that this will be made available to Serials Solutions customers. Our customer services representative cannot tell us exactly when it will be available but an announcement is due in the next few weeks to provide more information.
The two connectors which we had previously commissioned Serials Solutions to ‘fast-track’ for development were British Education Index on Dialog and Swetswise. Both of these should become available via WebFeat’s connector library.
How are results returned from the selected databases? How does SuperSearch choose which records to display?
Rather that retrieving all the results from all the databases at the same time, which would slow the system down, SuperSearch initially retrieves between 20 and 50 results from each resource being searched, which it combines into a single set and sorts into reverse date order.
Which 20-50 results are retrieved from each resource will depend on how that resource returns its results by default. For example, if the native interface displays results in reverse date order as a default, SuperSearch will retrieve most recent. If the native interface displays results in “relevance” order, then SuperSearch retrieves the most “relevant” etc.
The speed with which each resource returns its results doesn’t affect whether its results are included in SuperSearch’s initial result set, as it waits for each resource to respond before combining, deduplicating and sorting the results into date order. A resource would only be excluded if it returns zero results, if it times out completely, or if the search fails due to a system error.
This has an impact on the way SuperSearch balances small and large databases. Imagine Resource A is a core database for the subject and has 1000 results for a search, and Resource B is marginal to the subject and only has 5 results. Only some of the results from Resource A will be included in the first set whereas all results from Resource B will be displayed, even if they are less “relevant” than the results from Resource A which haven’t been included. You may want to bear this in mind when deciding whether to include marginal databases in your subject categories. On the plus side, this also means that large numbers of results from big databases like Business Source Premier doesn’t lead to the exclusion of results from smaller databases.
How much can we customise the interface? What can’t we change?
We can customise:
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the header of the SuperSearch pages (above the Basic/Advanced Search tabs) and the footer of the pages (beneath the blue line)
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the names of the subject categories and the databases included in each category
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the database names and descriptions
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the text behind the “How to Search” link, and what the link is called
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whether SuperSearch defaults to Basic or Advanced Search, and to Search by Subject or Search by Database
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which search types are displayed (eg title, author, full text, keyword) and which is the default
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the wording of error messages within SuperSearch
We cannot customise:
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the search functionality itself
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the clustering functionality
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the format of the results list. There are some options which can be switched on or off, for example we can choose whether to display or hide the summary of results by database by default. However, we do not have completely free choice as these elements are core to the system.
Serials Solutions also offer an XML API which would allow additional programmatic control over SuperSearch. However, this requires the involvement of software developers. The WOLF team are currently using the API to develop a SuperSearch tool for WOLF module.
Is there any option to display/hide all abstracts?
Unfortunately at this time the option to display/hide all abstracts isn’t available. However this request has been forwarded to the Serial Solutions development team to look at as an option.
Why can’t I export to EndNote?
Although SuperSearch does have the option to export to EndNote via RIS format files, references are imported into EndNote as a generic reference type, as the database connectors do not provide type or genre information. Two consequences are:
- Journal title goes into the “Alternative Title” field
- Publisher details are not exported with book
The EndNote option has therefore been removed at the request of some librarians.
Serials Solutions are developing one-touch export direct into EndNote Web, which will make export to EndNote easier although won’t necessarily help with the data accuracy. However, one-touch export could be included in Article Linker, so single citations could be exported more reliably. If the University experiments with RefWorks, we can also test Serials Solutions’ export to RefWorks, which is better developed than EndNote.
