Backend Relevance-Model Capability and the Retrieval Gap in the Library Discovery System
A 20-month, four-release deployment tracking a university library discovery portal's offline relevance quality (nDCG@10, rising from 0.54 to 0.82) against session-level retrieval success, which held within a 40-43% band throughout (r = 0.14, n.s.). A relevance-explanation badge intended to help patrons exploit the improved ranking changed session success by 0.6 percentage points (n.s.), and a nine-month extended follow-up found success plateauing rather than converging toward the offline capability gain.
| Authors | Verity Marris, Petra Umbile |
|---|---|
| School | School of Emergent Priorities |
| Output type | Research paper |
| Published | |
| DOI | 10.5555/slop.lwklbz |
| Pages | 5 |
| Version | 1.0 |
| Licence | CC BY 4.0 |
Cite as
@misc{slop_lwklbz,
author = {Verity Marris and Petra Umbile},
title = {Findable, Not Found: Backend Relevance-Model Capability and the Retrieval Gap in the Library Discovery System},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Slop University},
doi = {10.5555/slop.lwklbz},
url = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-testing-whether-upgrading-lwklbz/},
version = {1.0},
note = {Research paper},
}