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added diagram for patents site

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Simon Bowie 1 year ago
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      web/app/static/images/patents_site_architecture.png
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      web/content/section_5/on-combining-databases-and-books.md

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web/content/section_5/on-combining-databases-and-books.md View File

@@ -20,6 +20,8 @@ To make the dataset accessible and searchable, I wanted to put the data into a s

The Solr search engine allows us to run search queries against the text but it doesn’t provide a built-in frontend for doing so. Using [Flask](https://flask.palletsprojects.com/en/2.2.x/), a web framework written in Python, I built a website frontend with a searchbox that queries the Solr search engine and presents the results in an accessible way parsing out title, abstract, year of publication, country of origin, and document ID. Additionally by using the document ID to query the European Patent Office’s [Open Patent Services API](https://www.epo.org/searching-for-patents/data/web-services/ops.html), I was able to enhance the data we presented for each record by automatically pulling data like original language title, original language abstract, and images of the original patents. The images such as drawings from the patents often provide a new perspective on the inventions and clarify what is described in the abstracts.

![diagram of the application architecture](/static/images/patents_site_architecture.png)

Solr provides a reliable and robust search engine but we wanted to experiment with the idea of a search engine to reconceptualise how the data in this database could be represented. The traditional function of a search engine is to help lead a user towards a specific document that matches their search query. This is the case with library catalogues and archive search engines. As Marshall Breeding (2015) writes:

> One dimension of this experience relates to satisfying those with something specific in mind. These patrons may have a favorite author or topic in mind and want specific resources, which might include the next book by that author or an exhaustive set of materials in the bibliography of a research topic. The catalogs and discovery services that libraries present to their users are designed especially for these kinds of information fulfillment activities.

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