Beluga (search engine)

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beluga

Beluga-logo.png
Basic data

Maintainer University of Hamburg
operating system platform independent
category Search engine
German speaking Yes
https://beluga.hamburg

Beluga is a research platform for libraries designed as a search engine . It was developed under the direction of the Hamburg State and University Library together with six other Hamburg academic libraries and funded as an externally funded project by the Hamburg E-Learning Consortium (ELCH) from 2007 to 2010. With the consortium Discovery System Primo Central , Beluga can also integrate library catalogs outside of Hamburg . For better reusability and as a basis for cooperation, the follow-up project beluga core changed the software base from 2012 and the beluga 3.1 version has been available via the open source software VuFind since 2016 .

Naming

The catalog was named after a species of gudgeon whale , the beluga . These are considered very friendly and social. The name should also remind of the connection between the Hanseatic city of Hamburg and the sea.

Duration

The Beluga Index currently (as of November 25, 2018) comprises 15,500,000 book titles and several million available electronic articles. In doing so, he accesses the records of the library systems of the following participating libraries:

Planned new additions

Functionalities

Simple, advanced and cross-institute search

Export in different citation styles and formats

Campus delivery service

Since 2016, scientists from the University of Hamburg and the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf have been able to order articles from journals and compilations as well as chapters from monographs from the holdings of the Hamburg SUB and the Medical Central Library free of charge after registration and authentication . The processing time is a maximum of 3 days, and the ordered items are delivered as PDF by email .

Creating and managing personal reading lists

Since 2009, users have been able to create and manage literature lists under their personal user account. These can be individually named, the stored literature can be linked with tags . The user can decide whether his lists are saved publicly or privately.

Another function makes it possible to collect literature in a so-called “watch list” even when using it anonymously. In contrast to the personal reading lists, however, this collection is deleted again when the browser is closed . Furthermore, with both functions, the bibliographic information can be sent by e-mail or exported in different citation styles and formats.

Usability

Beluga is based on how Google works . The project was repeatedly accompanied by focus groups and usability tests . For the purpose of scientific neutrality, commercial sources for book covers and reviews have been avoided. During the ongoing development and adaptation of the software, the relevance sorting , the availability information and the optimal display of hits from Discovery indexes and local catalogs were adapted to user needs. In 2015, a responsive design was introduced with beluga 3.0 and tested for user-friendliness in cooperation with a project seminar at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW) .

Further functionalities

  • Display of availability for all participating libraries
  • Automatic link with various e-learning systems
  • Integration into social networks

System architecture

The in-house development is based on the open source projects Solr , Catalyst and refbase . The metadata format used is Dublin Core and references are generated according to the recommendation of the OpenURL framework . Bibliographic information such as OCLC / PICA is linked to learning management systems and social networks . It was an agile software development used to the user to purchase early in the development process with one. Primo Central was used to connect additional libraries . In cooperation with effective Webwork GmbH, besides a responsive web design (belugaX) , beluga core developed further improvements such as a high degree of configurability of the modules. The project is continuously documented on GitHub .

Interfaces

Literature lists and digital texts are transferred as zipped IMS content packages in XML format or as XSL files to the various learning management systems (LMS) of the Hamburg universities and further used ( CommSy , Moodle , Stud.IP and OLAT ).

For the availability of different citation styles and export formats, Beluga uses the unAPI server of the Göttingen network headquarters of the joint library network . Here, the bibliographic data , which are usually provided in PICA format, are first converted into the open MODS format and then the open source tool refbase generates all common citation styles and export formats from the MODS data.

The VuFind module, which is under the GNU General Public License , can also be used to connect libraries outside of Hamburg. The collaborative approach led to a collaboration between the State and University Library of Hamburg with the Braunschweig University Library , the University Library and the University Library Hildesheim Lüneburg and the effective Webwork GmbH . It was also linked to the Hamburg Learning Management System (LMS).

Future plans

Beluga is in constant development and will also be expanded to include new functions in the future. So far, thought has been given to embedding the loan functions directly in Beluga so that users no longer have to leave the platform to place orders. Other unanswered questions are the thematic browsing, the searchability of the content of the articles and the subject indexing information of the holdings according to the Regensburg group classification and the creation of a Beluga app for precise navigation to the locations of the media. The release of Beluga Core 5 based on VuFind 5 and the completion of the improvement work on the availability information are planned for the beginning of 2019 .

Web links

literature

  • Christensen, Anne: Do-it-yourself catalog 2.0: The beluga project of the Hamburg libraries, in: Library Manual 2.0, De Gruyter Saur, Berlin, New York 2010, ISBN 978-3-11-023210-3 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christensen (2010): Do-it-yourself catalog 2.0: The beluga project of the Hamburg libraries . S. 320 , doi : 10.1515 / 9783110232103.317 .
  2. ^ A b c d Maas, Jan Frederik: beluga - a consortial discovery system for libraries outside Hamburg, 1857-05-18. See slide 14 , accessed November 25, 2018 .
  3. ↑ beluga core - a cooperative further development of the open source catalog software VuFind , at www.beluga-core.de, accessed on December 2, 2018
  4. ↑ Publishing Dashöfer: beluga - a user-friendly catalog for Hamburg | www.dasbibliothekswissen.de - Your specialist knowledge online. Retrieved November 25, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Cooperation beluga core is being further developed cooperatively by the partners and commissioned service providers , at www.beluga-core.de, accessed on December 2, 2018
  6. ↑ Christensen, Anne: Design options in Catalog 2.0. Favorite lists and remixes and the example beluga. 2010, p. Slide 14 , accessed on November 28, 2018 .
  7. ↑ Christensen, Anne: beluga: In-house development of a catalog 2.0 of the Hamburg libraries with special consideration of the users, urn : nbn: de: 0290-opus-8394
  8. ^ Maas, Jan Frederik: A user-friendly catalog for Hamburg. 2012, accessed November 25, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Annual report of the university and city library. University and City Library Hamburg, 2015, accessed on November 25, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Christensen, Anne: Participatory Development of Services in the Library 2.0. Methods and results from catalog 2.2 projects . In: Library Service . tape 43 , volume 5, 2009, pp. 533 .
  11. ↑ Beluga blog. Retrieved November 25, 2018 .
  12. ↑ Christensen, Anne: Design options in Catalog 2.0. Favorite lists and remixes and the example beluga. 2010, accessed November 28, 2018 .
  13. ↑ Usability study. Beluga Blog, May 9, 2014, accessed November 29, 2018 .
  14. ↑ a b Kristof Keßler, Jan F. Maas, Jarmo Schrader, Matthias Finck: Das beluga core ABC - Architecture, Operation and Customizing of the Resource Discovery System beluga core (vufind), urn : nbn: de: 0290-opus4-30641
  15. ↑ a b Christensen (2010): Catalog 2.0 self-made: The beluga project of the Hamburg libraries. S. 321-326 .
  16. ^ Maaß, Jan Frederik: Beluga 3.0: Interview on the new catalog of the Stabi Hamburg. 2015, accessed November 26, 2018 .