Diving for Pearls: Controlled Searching on EdNA Online

The recent release of a metadata toolset by the EdNA Higher Education Project team has provided an opportunity for the Australian education community to improve access to a wealth of information resources through EdNA Online and related services. This paper is concerned with strategies for resource discovery. An evaluation of current Web-based search services reveals a need for greater precision, coverage, consistency and quality control. Subject Gateways, which typically utilise metadata to enhance their service, provide a potential solution and these are reviewed in the context of the principal author’s data model. EdNA Online demonstrates these qualities and this paper surveys the potential impact on its search capability of the new toolset and accompanying thesaurus. The authors conclude by assessing a number of possible developments, including metadata mapping and user profiling, that would serve to enhance resource discovery via EdNA Online.