A new way to search for patents

I am delighted to announce a new release of 2Dsearch, with various improvements including an integration with two of the world’s biggest patent databases: Google Patents and Lens Patents. What this means is that you can now run a single visual search across 14 different sources and benefit from automated translations for many more. And with the addition of Google Patents and Lens Patents, you can now use 2Dsearch for patent searching and competitive intelligence, with free starter examples for each.

We’ve lots more planned for the next release, so if you’d like to help shape this or have comments or suggestions then do let us know. We’d be delighted to hear from you.

 

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A comparative study of visual and form-based query builders

I’m delighted to report that our paper ‘Think outside the search box: A comparative study of visual and form-based query builders‘ has just been published in the Journal of Information Science. It’s been a long time in the making, primarily as the work involved an extensive set of empirical user studies and associated data analysis, for which much of the credit goes to my colleague and co-author Tanja Svarre. I am particularly pleased that this paper has made it into the public domain as it not only provides substance to the anecdotal evidence we’ve gathered around the value of visual approaches to advanced/systematic search, but also sets the scene for a follow-up paper focusing on a different demographic (with some quite unexpected differences between the two).

Feedback so far has been very informative, so keep it coming in. Abstract follows below:

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2Dsearch: new release (Feb 2022)

Delighted to announce a new release of 2Dsearch, with various improvements including new preferences with options for snap-to-grid, advanced query parsing and default databases. We’ve also integrated the latest version of PolyGlot and fixed the query parser bug which so many of you raised.

What this means is that you can now use 2Dsearch to execute a single visual search across a dozen different databases and benefit from automated translations for many more. We’ve also made further improvements to the user experience and now provide example searches for each of the databases.

We’ve lots more planned for the next release, so if you’d like to help shape this or have comments or suggestions then please let us know.

 

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Searching grey literature: a single strategy to search multiple sources

In this short video we take a brief look at searching grey literature. Grey literature is the term given to unpublished documents such as dissertations, technical reports, conference abstracts, newsletters, presentations and so on. Even though they may not have been formally published, these documents can still contain vital information.

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Translating search strategies: a universal language for information needs?

In this short video we learn how to automatically translate search strategies to the syntax of different databases.

Let’s start with a simple search strategy that finds documents on the use of exercise to prevent obesity in older people:

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Interactive query expansion for professional search applications

I’m delighted to report that our paper ‘Interactive query expansion for professional search applications‘ has just been published in the journal Business Information Review. It’s been a long time in the making, primarily as the work was completed over an extended period of time involving many iterations, not all of which were successful (in the product development sense). But it does represent a concise summary of our work in investigating knowledge-based and distributional (word embedding) approaches to the generation of interactive query suggestions for professional search (which, I should point out, poses a qualitatively different and greater challenge than query suggestions for traditional keyword/web search). In fact, this paper represents an abridged version of the full results, since for reasons of space we were obliged to omit certain techniques that were less successful. For full details of those, please refer to our pre-print on arXiv.

Anyway, feedback so far has been very informative. Keep it coming in! New release coming soon, so happy to accommodate thoughts & suggestions. Abstract appended below.

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2Dsearch: new release (spring 2021)

Spring is traditionally a time of new beginnings, so I am delighted this week to announce a new release of 2Dsearch. This release contains a variety of bug fixes and improvements, including support for two new databases: ACM Guide to Computing Literature and IDEAS (the largest bibliographic database dedicated to Economics available freely on the Internet). We’ve also improved our search report generation tool and now offer query statistics to help you refine those all important search strategies.

What all this means is that you can now use 2Dsearch to search visually across 12 different databases and use automated translations for 8 more. We’ve also made further improvements to the user experience and now provide example searches for each of the 12 databases.

We’ve lots more planned for the next release, so if you’d like to help shape this and/or have comments or suggestions then do let us know. We’d be delighted to hear from you!

 

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2Dsearch: new year, new release

New year, new release — I am delighted this week to announce a new release of 2Dsearch. This contains a variety of bug fixes and improvements, including support for IEEE XPlore, a ‘Help me choose’ feature and automated search report generation.

You can now use 2Dsearch to search visually across 10 different databases and use automated translations for many more. We’ve also made improvements to the canvas user experience and now provide starter examples for each of the 10 databases.

We’ve lots more planned for the next release, so if you’d like to help shape this and/or have comments or suggestions then do let us know. We’d be delighted to hear from you.

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Searching fast and slow

Great to see so many old (and new) faces at Search Solutions 2020 last month. A new format for us, being wholly virtual, but I think the change did us good, and in some ways reinvigorated the event. Looking forward to next years event already… In the meantime, here are the slides from my talk ‘Searching Fast and Slow‘. This talk makes the case for a transformation of professional search from a paradigm based on monolithic, static, procedural strings to one based on interactive, declarative, executable objects, with corresponding benefits in transparency, reproducibility and effectiveness. As always, comments and feedback welcome.

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An open-access platform to design, validate and share search strategies

Last week I was honored and privileged to give a talk at EAHIL 2020 (European Association for Health Information and Libraries) on the topic of An open-access platform to design, validate and share search strategies. This is joint work with Farhad Shokraneh of King’s College. Delighted to say our talk generated a number of interesting discussions and follow ups. Our slides are attached below: comments and feedback welcome.

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