Trialling the new search tool… your feedback please

 Feedback, Regular users  6 Responses »
Oct 112011
 

State Records NSW is now inviting our regular users to trial http://api.records.nsw.gov.au as a new search tool for accessing the State Archives collection.

If you have tried this new search tool, and have feedback to give, we would love to hear it. We are actively developing the tool and would like to make it as useful and as intuitive as possible. So please post any feedback you have as comments to this blog post.

From time to time we’ll post project updates to this blog. Any posts of particular interest for regular users using http://api.records.nsw.gov.au as a search tool are being marked with the “Regular users” category (in the right-hand column).

So far there have been posts on:

So what’s the whole API thing about anyway?

On this site, and in other places, you may find that the new search tool is also being described as an API, or application programming interface. This is because http://api.records.nsw.gov.au isn’t just a search tool, it is also an interface for making the raw data underlying the catalogue accessible, particularly for re-use by developers.

It’s a bit like toy trucks. If most online catalogues are toy trucks that you can play with, but only using the features built-in by the manufacturer, then http://api.records.nsw.gov.au is a toy truck built from lego bricks.

Because it is an API, you can take the search tool apart and use its “bricks” (i.e. XML or JSON versions of the search results and entities) to create other things (such as this mashup of ministries entities), mix it with other sources of data (e.g. to create federated search portals), or even upload your own data (by creating applications that automatically tag or add comments to items in the catalogue).

Lego truck, by monkeyc.net (flickr)

This “API approach” also has a lot of value for State Records because it means we can make better use of our own data (for example, it makes it much easier for us to contemplate creating new tools like mobile phone applications that integrate with the catalogue).

That said, if you just want a toy truck (a simple but powerful search tool), and don’t want to worry about all this API business, that’s OK, because, at the end of the day, it is a toy truck too!

 

 

Citing series and items using Zotero

 Regular users  No Responses »
Aug 082011
 

Zotero is a free tool that helps you collect and manage research notes and references. It has many useful features including the automatic creation of bibliographies and footnotes, online back-up and syncing, and search and tagging of your notes and references. Zotero also integrates with many different websites (such as library catalogues, online journals or newspapers, and reference sites like Wikipedia) to automatically record appropriate citations when you are doing online research.

State Records’ new API (http://api.records.nsw.gov.au) supports the automatic capture of series and item citations by Zotero.

To try this out:

  1. download Zotero. If you use Mozilla Firefox as your browser, you can install it as a browser plug-in. Otherwise, install the standalone version.
  2. navigate to the series or item in the API that you would like to cite. E.g. http://api.records.nsw.gov.au/series/1
  3. click the scroll icon in your browser’s address bar to automatically capture the citation.

Add series to ZoteroTo check that the citation has been correctly added, bring up the Zotero screen (Ctrl-Alt-Z) and you should have a new item in your Zotero library. You can append your research notes or attach digital images to this item.

In Zotero

Searching the collection with the new API

 Regular users  No Responses »
Jun 232011
 

State Records NSW’s new API is designed primarily as a framework to allow the development of new web services (both internally by State Records staff and by external developers). Nevertheless the creation of the API has provided us with an opportunity to experiment with new ways of presenting collection search results and this aspect of the project may be of interest to all researchers using the collection.

In this post I describe key features of the API’s collection search and also some of the more advanced functionality you can access ‘under the hood’. To try the collection search yourself, go to: http://api.records.nsw.gov.au.

An example

Example search results using the new API

What, why and who

Rather than presenting search results as a simple list, the API’s collection search provides a structured view, clustering results according to three questions:

  • what records (both record series and individual items) relate to the query?
  • why might records relating to the query have been created by Government (Government functions and activities)?
  • who in Government (agencies and people) might have created records relating to the query?

(For those interested in archival theory, this three-part division matches Australian archivist Chris Hurley’s conception of archival description as comprising three essential types of entity: documents, deeds and doers.)

Simple search, but not too simple

The new search box might look ‘simple’ but sophisticated searching of the catalogue is still possible.

Swamped with too many hits? Use the two ‘filters’ in the right-hand column of the results page to drill down to more relevant results. The date filter narrows results by date range. The series filter allows you to see at a glance the key record series relating to your query and narrow your results to particular series.

If you are a ‘power user’ you can include these filters in your initial search by adding the following special keywords to your query:

  • entities:[Item,Series,Function,Activity,Person,Agency]
  • series:[series id number]
  • from:[year]
  • to:[year]

For example, the following query will just return record items dating between 1900 and 1950:

Custom search

Incorporating the new collection search into your browser

Fallen in love with the new collection search? If you use a modern version of firefox or internet explorer, you can take it with you anywhere you go on the internet by including it amongst the ‘search providers’ in your browser’s search box (next to the main address box). This will allow you to quickly search State Records’ collection wherever you happen to be browsing. To do this:

  1. go to http://api.records.nsw.gov.au
  2. if you are on internet explorer, do this:

Or, if you are on firefox do this:

Got suggestions?

The API’s collection search is, like the API itself, still in an experimental mode. If you have any suggestions for how it might be improved we would love to hear them (and we might try to implement them). Please post your ideas as comments to this post.