August 22, 2007
Oklahoma Library Meets the BOSS
The BOSS, at Oklahoma State University’s library, is the Big Orange Search System. It’s an alternative online card catalog, one that shows users not just the university’s holdings but a constellation of related search terms, any one of which might lead a user to information gold.
The system uses a technology called “faceted search,” which features options to refine results and narrow things down. It also lets a user broaden a search using a “word cloud”: terms that surround the original search text and consist of associations, spelling variations, translations, and words a user has already tried.
Oklahoma’s colors tend toward the orange, hence the search engine’s nickname. That information, however, didn’t come up in a BOSS search when a user typed in “Big Orange.” It was on the university’s Web site, though. No search algorithm is perfect. —Josh Fischman
Posted on Wednesday August 22, 2007 | Permalink |Comments
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The Boss Oklahoma State University is an excellent alternative pertaining specifically to an online card catalog system. The feature entitled “faceted search” is an option that is highly prized of researchists. It’s an excellent resource.
William Allan Kritsonis, PhD
Professor
PhD Program in Educational Leadership
Prairie View A&M University
The Texas A&M University System
— William Allan Kritsonis, PhD Aug 22, 05:11 PM #
Oklahoma STATE’s colors tend toward the orange (Day-Glo, actually). OKLAHOMA’s colors are crimson and cream.
— Debra Aug 22, 05:21 PM #
What do the colors of the U of Oklahoma have to do with this article? This article is about a “faceted search” using OKLAHOMA STATE’s online card catalog. Perhaps you missed that part of the article. Or, is it that “The Big Crimson and Cream Search System” (BC&CSS) does not sound quite as good as BOSS? Come on Debra, get a life!
— Mac Aug 23, 09:02 AM #
Debra, you are one observant reader. Most of us understand your reference to the mistake in the third paragraph of the article.
— pajamas Aug 23, 09:21 AM #
ease up, Mac. This is supposed to be a collegial discussion.
— Jeff Aug 23, 09:44 AM #
Hey Mac – get off of Debra’s back. At least she was observant enough to realize that the writer of this blurb got OU and OSU (of the Oklahoma varieties) school colors mixed up. The author should be the target of your smarta— comments, not Debra.
— John Aug 23, 09:45 AM #
“That information, however, didn’t come up in a BOSS search when a user typed in ‘Big Orange.’”
And why would it? BOSS searches the library’s holdings, not the University website.
— Toni Aug 23, 02:20 PM #
When I do research, and Boss serves the bill, I am not concerned about the colors of the web site , so Oklahoma’s
color is fine with me.
— Peter Rienstra Aug 23, 04:45 PM #