Case Study: R.R. Bowker achieves subsecond search and rapid XML content updates with MarkLogic

A Case of Improving Content Flow-From Storage to Access

R.R. Bowker, the U.S. ISBN agency behind the Books in Print database, needed a faster, more flexible way to store and deliver bibliographic content: millions of titles, more than 20 million documents (≈600GB) with 600,000–700,000 daily updates and about four queries per second overwhelmed its Verity+Oracle setup, which left Bowker days behind in publishing new records. The company required a solution that could support heavy concurrent updates and searches and allow rapid addition of new document types without multi-week rebuilds.

Bowker implemented MarkLogic Server, an XML content server with XQuery and full-text search that converts incoming feeds to XML, enabling element/proximity queries and simultaneous update/search operations. Deployed in about 4–5 months, the new platform delivered subsecond search responses (vs. 2.5–3s previously), cut processing delays to a business-chosen one-day lag, reduced admin overhead, allowed rapid introduction of new content types, and set Bowker on a path to be fully XML-based and to expand offerings around full-book content and relevance-based services.

Bowker

Mark Heinzelman

Chief Information Officer