MetaLib v4 is due out later this year, so some highlights here…

Accessibility

This has long been a bone of contention with MetaLib (and other Ex Libris products), and finally we are seeing the fruits of long conversations with Ex Libris about this. With ML 4 we have coming:
Section 508 Compliance
JAWS, Dragon and wide range of browsers tested
Use of HTML, CSS Validity (HTMS 4.01 Transitional, CSS 2.0)
Simplicity – ‘lighten’ HTML (reduced source code by 60-70%!), and reduce use of JS
Ease of Customisation – to reduce TCO

At the same time Ex Libris have endeavoured to keep the user interface exactly the same as it is in v3.x. There are some slight changes, but these are mainly in the areas of new options (e.g. non-js version). Some changes that may be noticed by the end user are that the pop-ups are now different, and can be resized, moved etc. (unlike currently), also when you leave MetaLib, then a message informs them that this is happening with a customisable message.

Enhanced Search results

This is a major change in v4. There will be the ability to cluster and ‘facet’ search results. This should enable users to analyze results at a glance, and to expose new or related topics to the user – to enable navigation and further refining of results.

‘Clusters’ are derived from text mining of a user’s search results records. Ex Libris are using licensed clustering technology from Vivissimo. Note that Clusters are not taken from a taxonomy, and are built ‘on the fly’. The clusters are presented as an expandable/collapsible hierarchy.

Facets on the otherhand are ‘pre-selected’ (by Ex Libris), and are built on structured fields from the retrieved records – for v4, Ex L are providing Author, Publication date and Journal title facets.

From the users point of view, ‘clusters’ and ‘facets’ are presented in the same way, so they aren’t aware of any difference and don’t have to worry about the semantic differentiation above! The user just sees the option to view records by topic, date, author or journal title.

KnowledgeBase Enhancements

Over the last year between 250 and 300 have been added to the central KB over the last year – with around a third of these coming from user driven requests.

Ex Libris prefer to work with resources that support z39.50 or XML standard gateways – as this helps maintain a low TCO.

Rollout of ML4

Quite a lot of enhancement originally intended for ML4 have actually been released in service packs to v3.13. This includes:

X-Server enhancements (sign up for some details of user implementations in the ‘Innovative Users of Metalib’ Webinar on the 18th October).
Statistics and Reports (I haven’t noticed any improvements here – perhaps we need to look at these again?)
MetaIndex (which in our case, we have not got)

ML4 will start by release to Ex Libris offices and distributors in December 2006, and will start to be available to ‘early adopters’ in early 2007. There will be an ‘upgrade express’ kit, which will allow customer’s to apply the upgrade without impacting on the ‘live’ version (given enough disk space presumably).

The future

Even with the upcoming developments with Primo, MetaLib is stil a key component in Ex Libris’ overall strategy. The areas of focus for development are:

MetaLib at ‘point of need’ – user focused and integrated into other environments such as VLEs, Portals and of course Primo
Lowering TCO for MetaLib