Endeca Technologies, Inc.

Tina Jayroe

University of Denver

Shimelis G. Assefa, PhD

Library and Information Technology
July 29, 2008
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Abstract

Endeca is a privately held technology company whose MDEX search engine is being used by

library and information systems around the globe in order to leverage the metadata that already

exist within an institution’s system. Often referred to as a next-generation catalog, Endeca’s

Information Access Platform helps information seekers conduct dynamic and natural language

queries while providing intuitive steps for ranking and refining search results through the use of

non-traditional searching techniques—such as faceted classification.

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Endeca Technologies, Inc. is a software company based out of Cambridge,

Massachusetts. The company develops the discovery tools which enhance bibliographic records

existent within a library system. This results in easier, more relevant, and better search

experiences for online public access catalog (OPAC) users. Endeca has operations throughout

North America, Asia, Europe, and Australia, and has a long list of corporate clients, as well as

product training facilities in four major cities.1 Although Endeca’s technology is primarily used

in the business world for life cycle management, business intelligence, and Web services, the

company's Information Access Platform (IAP) has been successfully adopted by a handful of

libraries in the U.S., one in the U.K., and is often distributed by The Library Corporation.2

The IAP facilitates Endeca’s "Guided Navigation" experience via use of its MDEX

Search Engine database. Because the product has the ability to wrap-around legacy systems and

use metadata already in an integrated library system, its data-retrieval mechanism has become

advantageous for next-generation catalogs. This is key because in order for libraries to conform

to the mainstream searching habits of Web surfers and move away from the complicated search

strategies of professional librarians, newer OPACs must make the leap from known-item queries

such as “I need a book by Konrad Lorenz” to open-ended questions like “I would like a video on

Italian landscapes, narrated in Italian, fairly recent, and popular among patrons.”

Endeca’s technology guides the user to relevant (and commonly unknown) information

by providing intuitive choices. And it does this by employing metadata attributes. This process

occurs when the user strategically ranks the indexed information by selecting or removing

specific categories (or metadata values called dimensions3) first based on the initial query, and

subsequently based on the dynamically manipulated results produced by that query.

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The components that make this retrieval technique more successful than in previous

catalogs are the features and functionality that the application provides such as: matching

techniques; spelling suggestions; browsing options; recommender features (such as “more titles

like this,” or “more by this author”); intelligent stemming; and no dead-ends. Endeca calls this

an unstructured text search—meaning the user can discover hundreds of paths leading to a

relevant item (Endeca, “Online Demo,” 2008). Today, Endeca’s technology provides more than

a billion possible paths to disparate information and consequently, the word Endeca means “to

discover” in German (Boyle, 2006, ¶ 4).

The MDEX Engine does not need a fixed schema like relational databases do and is

much like XML in that without schematic restraints, it is able search every value, attribute, and

component in a company’s IT infrastructure. It then summarizes a result set from a structured

query and gains a thorough overview of what lies in the separate layers and silos of a system:

[The MDEX Engine] can gain and lose attributes and values without disturbing any of the

other records or violating any overarching organization. This flexibility and control

allows developers to unify heterogeneous, changing data and content from multiple

sources without the headaches and expense of traditional data modeling (“Endeca IAP,”

2008, p. 8).

One of the most successful implementations of the MDEX Engine has been to North

Carolina State University (NCSU). The IAP works with their integrated library system and uses

MARC 4J API—an application that exports MARC records into text files—to reformat the

MARC records in the library system’s database of bibliographic records. The engine is then able

to re-index and leverage the Library of Congress call numbers and subject headings. This

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architecture improves topical searches by finding relationships not only within the metadata but

also among the terms and words in that content (“Endeca for Libraries” datasheet, 2008).

Another institution with an Endeca-powered catalog is the Phoenix Public Library. A

basic keyword search for “old libraries” (Figure 1) returns 14 general categories for refining data

facets. This is displayed on the left side of the page. The page’s organized layout also allows for

an easy selection of item format by having tabs directly beneath the populated search field.

By default the OPAC displays five categories under “time periods” along with a number

of items in each category. By selecting “see more time periods” the engine then parses the data

for “old libraries” into 29 very specific time periods; therefore enabling more precision in this

time-frame category. This function is present in all categories.

Figure 1. Phoenix Public Library’s keyword search results

The main page of any subject search (Figure 2) conveniently displays tabs for more

information without having to leave the page. This keeps the user “guided” or “on track” with

the original query. In other words, by not having to click through pages or open more windows,

it is much easier to retrieve more information without getting lost or frustrated.

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When the search field is populated with librar*, the catalog automatically selects a term

and indexes results relating to the Spanish word “libra.” More importantly, it asked “did you

mean library?” This feature is crucial for identifying exactly which term the user is looking for.

Figure 2. A selected record in the Phoenix Public Library catalog

Whether just starting a search or working within one, the options seem limitless. At

NCSU (Figure 3), a simple title search for “meningitis and encephalitis” provides multiple

options for manipulating data and reworking the query even after a selection.

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Figure 3. A title search in the NCSU catalog

Once an record is chosen it is still possible to: (a) browse the shelf; (b) view the MARC display

(Figure 4)—accessing attributes, authorities, and descriptors; (c) check similar call numbers,

authors, etc.; and (d) follow given links leading to even more options.

Figure 4. A MARC record in the NCSU catalog

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The Future for Endeca

In the business world, Endeca Technologies, Inc. is thriving with new partnerships, new

training facilities, new market sectors, and huge profits. The company has won numerous

awards for being one of the fastest growing private companies in the U.S.4 Recently, FTI

Consulting announced an agreement with Endeca to deploy an e-Discovery platform aimed at

retrieving information about litigation, mergers, and acquisitions. In general, the corporate

sector is very receptive to the idea of using Endeca’s platforms to integrate and leverage the data

already existent within a company’s system (“Connections,” 2008).

In the library world, Endeca’s technology allows for a catalog not to assume the search

sequence of a user and not to have predetermined destination. The MDEX Engine is truly state-

of-the-art, but like any search tool, it is not the “be-all and end-all.” Melissa L. Rethlefsen,

education technology librarian at the Learning Resource Center, Mayo Clinic College of

Medicine and author of Easy ≠ Right says, “Research requires more than relevancy. There are

also currency, authority, and serendipity to consider” (Rethlefsen, 2008, p. 13). Rethlefsen also

states that these federated/broadcast/parallel/metasearches do not replace the same level of

precision one gets by accessing databases individually for scholarly research.

However, Endeca is not exactly sitting still. The company has big plans to incorporate

more facets from authority headings to allow for synonym matching; to enable clustering

capabilities and tagging functionality; and to be able to answer natural language queries. All in

order to combat the “good enough” syndrome often present in libraries while simultaneously

saving time of the surfer.5

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References

Antelman, K., Lynema, E., & Pace, A. (2006). Toward a twenty-first century library catalog

[Electronic version]. Information Technology and Libraries, 25(3), 128–139.

Boyle, M. (2006). Going beyond Google. CNNMoney.com. Retrieved July 6, 2008, from

http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/20/technology/pluggedin_boyle.fortune/.

Breeding, M. (2007). Endeca [Electronic version]. Library Technology Reports, 43(4), 19–21.

Connections. (2008). Law Technology News, Retrieved July 6, 2008, from http://0-

find.galegroup.com.bianca.penlib.du.edu:80/itx/start.do?prodId=CDB.

Endeca Technologies, Inc. (2008). Endeca Information Access Platform white paper. Retrieved

July 22, 2008, from http://endeca.com/resources/pdf /Endeca_IAP_white_paper.pdf.

Endeca Technologies, Inc. (2008). Endeca for Libraries datasheet. Retrieved July 14, 2008 from

http://www.endeca.com/resource-center-datasheets.htm.

Endeca Technologies, Inc. (2008). Online Demo. Retrieved July 22, 2008, from

http://endeca.com/resources/pdf/demo.html.

Rethlefsen, M. L. (2008). Easy ≠ right. netConnect Summer 2008 Library Journal, (133), 12–14.

Sowards, S.W. (1997). Save the time of the surfer: Evaluating web sites for users. Library Hi

Tech, 15(3/4), 155–158. doi: 10.1108/07378839710308501

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Footnotes

1
Some of Endeca’s clients include: ABN AMRO, Boeing, Cox Newspapers, the US Defense

Intelligence Agency, Dell, Ford Motor Company, Hyatt, IBM, John Deere, Texas Instruments,

Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Costco, and Barnes & Noble: Available at http://endeca.com/customers

/index.html. Endeca holds training seminars in Cambridge, MA., Chicago, IL., San Mateo, CA.,

and Richmond, UK and online: Available at http://www.endeca.com/services-education-

locations.htm.
2
The Library Corporation has been marketing and distributing Endeca technology since 2004.

However libraries can still buy the application from Endeca directly (Breeding, 2007, p. 19).
3
“Dimensions” is a term that Endeca uses for these values (Antelman et al., 2006, p. 130).
4
Google search string for many of Endeca’s accolades as a successful private company:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=endeca+private+company&btnG=Google+Search.
5
The article Save the time of the surfer . . . was not read or referenced by this author,

however, credit could not be taken for the phrase either.

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