Integrating thesaurus relationships into search and browse in an online photograph collection

Purpose – Seeks to share with digital library practitioners the development process of an online image collection that integrates the syndetic structure of a controlled vocabulary to improve end-user search and browse functionality. Design/methodology/approach – Surveys controlled vocabulary structures and their utility for catalogers and end-users. Reviews research literature and usability findings that informed the specifications for integration of the controlled vocabulary structure into search and browse functionality. Discusses database functions facilitating query expansion using a controlled vocabulary structure, and web application handling of user queries and results display. Concludes with a discussion of open-source alternatives and reuse of database and application components in other environments. Findings – Affirms that structured forms of browse and search can be successfully integrated into digital collections to significantly improve the user’s discovery experience. Establishes ways in which the technologies used in implementing enhanced search and browse functionality can be abstracted to work in other digital collection environments. Originality/value – Significant amounts of research on integrating thesauri structures into search and browse functionalities exist, but examples of online resources that have implemented this approach are few in comparison. The online image collection surveyed in this paper can serve as a model to other designers of digital library resources for integrating controlled vocabularies and metadata structures into more dynamic search and browse functionality for end-users.