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Lab introduces new search engine
Aha! is often shouted when we discover something new or stumble upon some surprising tidbit of information.
It's also the name of a new Laboratory search engine to retrieve information on Lab science and technology through the World Wide Web.
aha! is a categorized search engine, said Katherine Norskog of Communication Arts and Services (CIC-1) and a member of the team that developed aha!
Laboratory Deputy Director Bill Press asked CIC-1 to improve the presentation of science and technology content on the Lab's Web pages. Press said people who wanted to learn about science and technology at the Lab had a difficult time navigating the Lab's Web site.
The Web site was rolled out last summer and is available through the Lab's home page. There are two versions of the search engine: http://aha.lanl.gov for Lab employees accessing the Web page internally, or http://aha-public.lanl.gov accessible to those in and outside of the Lab.
"This is an attempt to start to give us some sort of information management structure," said Norskog. "This is something new and we're hoping to build it with the help of the Laboratory community."
Categorized search engines -- of which Yahoo! is the most well known -- provide users more focused and higher quality information, said Norskog.
Keyword searches can be more comprehensive. But users often end up having to search through hundreds or even thousands of results.
"Many organizations are finding that when they stick a keyword search engine on top of a whole lot of data, they also have to do a categorized search," said Kathy Varjabedian of the Research Library (CIC-14) and a member of the team that developed the search engine. "aha! gives us a way to do a really inexpensive and tailored search."
Librarians Varjabedian and Mona Mosier, also of CIC-14, are developing the institutional thesaurus, adding research and administrative material and categorizing it for aha!
Laboratory technical reports, Los Alamos Science articles, Los Alamos patents, web pages and media files are some of the resources available through aha! The technical reports and patents are pdf format files provided by CIC-14 and require Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.
The media files are RealMedia streaming video files, which are selected from the Lab Media Server.
aha! also provides "Hot Links" on the main page and on each top-level category page.
aha! entries contain title, Web address, brief description and occasionally additional keywords. Up to three categories are assigned, depending on the topic and specificity of the item. Category trees can be browsed or a search of the aha! database will search the titles, descriptions and keywords.
A search can be performed on all of aha!, within one aha! category or the entire Lab Web site. Each aha! search displays results from the aha! database and also indicates the number of hits on the entire Lab Web page, so if you don't find what you need in aha! you can follow the link to the broader results.
Norskog said aha! search results are alphabetically arranged by title, with the categories assigned to each resource indicated so that a user can follow on to categories that look useful.
Other members of the aha! team are Mosier and Varjabedian of CIC-14, Susan Buchroeder of Network Engineering (CIC-5), Nikki Goldman of CIC-1 and James Mottonen, formerly of CIC-5. Norskog was the project coordinator.
Norskog said Lab employees can provide feedback and suggestions on aha! by writing to aha@lanl.gov by e-mail. "It's only as good as what we've found and put in there or what people ask us to put in there," she said. "When you run into a problem, tell us and we'll go find it."
--Steve Sandoval
New Web page consolidates resources for office, administrative managers
Laboratory office administrators or managers now have one stop on the World Wide Web for resources that help them do their jobs.
Called the Administrative Resources page, it can be found online at http://int.lanl.gov/enterprise/.
The page brings together all the resources that administrative managers need, explained Pat Hummer of Business Information Systems (CIC-13).
"One of the goals of this page was to try to put all of the resources that office administrators and managers would be using on a daily or weekly basis in one place," she said.
An Information Management Focus team in the Computing, Information and Communications (CIC) Division saw the need for an online resources page for office managers. The team asked a group of CIC employees to develop the Web page, Hummer explained.
"The CIC Information Management Focus Group is all about helping our customers see information services as a coherent unity rather than a mere collection of service offerings," said Bob Newell, CIC deputy division director for information services. "One of our first efforts, the administrative resources Web page, organizes useful information in a single, easy to use manner."
The Web site, which was activated Oct. 15, contains links to memoranda, job and hiring information, travel, puchasing, time and effort, computers, official documents, reports and even availability of conference rooms in open and classified areas.
In addition, the Lab's new aha! search engine provides links for browsing and searching many other topics useful to office administrators and managers (see accompanying article)
Before the web page was created, office managers often had to go to three or four locations online to make purchases, submit travel requests or the like, said Hummer.
"A lot of this information has been out there on the Web, but it's been a challenge for some to find," she said.
Nikki Goldman and Margaret Burgess of Communication Arts and Services (CIC-1) sent an e-mail survey to about 700 office managers, administrators and secretaries asking what Lab Web sites they access regularly as part of their job; what information they are having trouble finding; what resources they have bookmarked to help them do their job; and what other types of administrative information they need, such as Department of Energy orders and administrative manuals.
Some office administrators who have used the new Web page have reacted positively.
Debbie Roybal of Institutional Business Development (IBD) said the Administrative Resources Web page eliminates the need to bookmark numerous Web sites. "I have been trying out this page and it works great," said Roybal. "It is so much better than having to look all over the place to find what you need on a daily basis."
Added Maria Armijo of the Project Management (PM) Division Office, "Instead of going to different locations, it's all centralized in one."
Hummer said the page will be revised periodically to include new information useful to office administrators and managers. Suggestions for improvements, resource categories and other Web pages that can be linked to from this page can be sent to aha@lanl.gov by e-mail.
--Steve Sandoval
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Controlled burn at TA-16 today There will be a controlled burn near TA-16 on the east side of West Jemez Road today. The burn will take place between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. |
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