1. MERLIN (Metadata Enrichment for Libraries in a London Institutional Network): short overview
Martin Moyle Digital Curation Manager UCL Library Services, UK
MERLIN Steering Group 1, 26 January 2010

2. Background
JISC funded (Information Environment 09-11, Resource Discovery strand)
Partners: UCL, ULCC, University of Nottingham
Aims
use off-the-shelf text-mining tools to enrich repository functionality
refine this work with user feedback and roll out
18 months (April 2009 – September 2010)

3. Objectives
Integrate NacTEM tools in the SHERPA-LEAP consortial repository ‘LASSO’, deriving weighted keywords from source repositories.
Modify LASSO to expose these mined terms for discovery.
Work with users to ensure usefulness and user-friendliness of these modifications.
Experiment with thesauri: can mined terms be used to support/enhance structured navigation?
Roll out a MERLIN tool for plugging in to IRs.
Full project evaluation.
Dissemination.

4. Text-mining for repositories: why?
Improve discoverability of repository content
Cost-effective description – cheaper than subject cataloguing…
Uses researchers' own vocabularies
Supports interdisciplinarity
Adds selectivity and weight to full text indexing
May also be used as the basis for structured navigation
Examples: how MERLIN outputs might look…

5. LASSO: basic search

6. LASSO: with terms mined from full texts
Terms are weighted by frequency. Use slider to see
more/fewer terms
Select a mined term...

7. ...new set of records associated with that term is retrieved

8. Progress / next steps Done Tasks between now and Easter
Initial text mining
Integration of mined dataset with LASSO data
LASSO customisation under way
Tasks between now and Easter
User evaluation of LASSO; iterative improvement
Refinements to text mining; full integration into LASSO workflow
Begin thesaurus work...

9. Thesaurus interaction - example