Striking a new Cenote
Paul gets all the fun!
Not only does he get to show the first results of Medialab becoming a Talis Platform Partner, using data contributed to the Platform in their AquaBrowser Online service that I posted about earlier. But he also gets to be the first to show off Project Cenote.
Project Cenote (pronounced suh-noh-tee) joins its cousin Talis Whisper as a visible demonstration of building applications on the Talis Platform. Whisper is an AJAX application with the entire user interface running within the browser. Cenote demonstrates the power of using the Platform’s services to create a web site based application.
A glance at the screen shot above, or better still a play with Project Cenote it’s self, clearly shows that we have taken a fundamentally different approach to its user interface design. But its look is not the only thing that makes it different from other interfaces to search publicly visible library recourses.
Fire off a few searches and you will soon see that results are returned for items held by many libraries. Where available the user can click through deep-linked to the OPAC of the holding library. Bibliographic results are enhanced with book jacket images, from more than one source. In addition book descriptions and pricing information are displayed.
What is different, is the power of the recently enhanced Platform APIs that Cenote uses to deliver the functionality it wraps in its distinctive UI. More on the technical detail of these in a future posting, but for now suffice it to say that it is the Platform that is doing ‘the heavy lifting’ of searching the large scale content stores holding the data, and then orchestrating the augmentation of the basic bibliographic data with associated images, descriptions, library holdings information. etc. All the Cenote application is doing is presenting those results to the user.
Another difference is that every result and search has a static URL. For instance the URL http://cenote.talis.com/isbn/9780747571667 takes you to the page displaying information for the book with the ISBN 9780747571667. The URL http://cenote.talis.com/author/rowling takes you to an author search for Rowling. The same URL format is also true for title, subject, publisher, etc. - have a try.
The search power, although not visible through an advanced search page yet, is available through Cenote’s single search prompt. As per many internet search engines words typed in to the prompt are treated as keywords, unless prefixed by a search type. So this search “title:war and peace author:Tolstoy” will give you these results.
So what is the purpose of Project Cenote? It has two main purposes. Firstly, like Whisper, it is a visible demonstration of the power of the Platform built upon open contributed data, and along with the partnership with AquaBrowser Online a working proof that the Platform approach fosters rapid innovation in the development of real solutions. Secondly, it is a tool to drive the discussion around what the future User Interfaces in to library data may look like, and how they will operate.
A Cenote TDN discussion forum has been created for this discussion to grow within. Like it, hate it, intrigued by it, think it should do more, think it is applicable to your situation - or not. Let us know, it will help us, and others that will build on the Platform, build the tools the users want.
Technorati Tags: Talis, Talis Platform, Library, Cataloging, Library 2.0, Web 2.0, Cenote, Web Services
October 16th, 2006 at 11:59 am
Richard
please when developing interfaces could developers remember that we have to compy with the DDA act and have to by law ensure that websites are accessible to people with visual impairments. A broad guide is that there should be strong contrast between text coplour and its background. I am very much afraid that although the interface for cenote looks very attractive some of the headings are very difficult to read because they are grey on black. Likewise the white text at the bottom of the screen is extremely difficult to read.Call it nit picking but if we were ver to use anything like this we would have to be legal.
I must say though that I do prefer this to the earlier Whisper. Now if you could link this into an electronic inter library loan request form that links to borrower details and borrower account as well as the option to use Amazon that would be rell yuseful.
Melanie
October 16th, 2006 at 4:39 pm
Hi Melanie
Of course you are totally right. Delivering an application across the web comes with the obligation that the service can be used by all. Traditionally this usually means that the one and only interface for the service conforms to the lowest common denominator of look & feel requirements.
Like its cousin Whisper, Cenote is only another demonstration of what is possible when you build a user interface on top of a set of powerful APIs. The traditional model of having a single interface for your service, because they are so complex to build, will gradually change.
When a new UI is built on top of APIs, the cost of construction is greatly reduced. Because of this I would fully expect many services in the future to be provided through a range of interfaces – some tuned for staff, some tuned for researchers, some for students, some for the public, some for those with visual impairment, some tuned to be accessed via screen reading software, some that ‘just look cool’.
One of the reasons behind Cenote is to stimulate the debate around what is delivered from the Platform service and the types of User Interface that can be built upon them. Your comments are exactly the kind of response that will foster the debate.