Supporting Cross-Session Searching: Dilex Search and Search Timelines

The common design pattern for library search interfaces includes a query box, a search results list, facets to support query refinement, and a workspace in which to save search results. Such interfaces favour simplicity and learnability, limiting their ability to support searchers who have complex information needs that span multiple search sessions. A recent focus of our research group has been to design, implement, and study new approaches to support cross-session searching. The implementation of such interfaces has been enabled through the use of the Primo and Polaris APIs. Two particularly successful approaches will be demonstrated: Dilex Search and Search Timelines. Both use semi-automatic methods for keeping track of search tasks and visualization to show past search behaviour to enable task resumption. For Dilex Search, we have fast-tracked the transition from research prototype to commercial product development. It is now available for deployment within Ex Libris ecosystems.