AI for World Bank Group (WBG) Library Intelligent Search: An Exploration of Three Technologies

The WBG Library (ITSLP) is seeking innovative solutions to develop a Discovery Tool that allows an efficient search process by providing applicable and relevant search results to library clients from numerous data sources. While some sources are freely available and easy to access for resolving results, others only provide relatively basic metadata due to the API request and require a subscription. Therefore, a tool configured to search effectively, returning and surfacing relevant and democratized results leveraging the limited metadata fields (keywords, title, source title, date, etc.) offered in most data sources are highly needed. Considering the above challenges, the Technology & Innovation Lab (ITSTI) team of the WBG explored four different tools with key data sources to guide the design of possible solutions under the following conditions: keeping small scope in terms of data sources to work efficiently during the exploration and focusing on high-value data sources with minimal and/or varied metadata, leverage subject matter expert's feedback.