Discover or no Discover?That is the question

by Houeida Kammourié-Charara & Omar Farhoud

Lebanese American University 2013 AMICAL-OCLC Forum The Challenges of Discovery Services

RNL, Beirut, 8-9 March, 2013

What is a Discovery tool?• Discovery is “modeled on the Google-style

approach of building and then searching a unified index of available resources, instead of searching each resource individually” (Luther, & Kelly, 2011).

• In academic libraries, discovery tools such as EBSCO Discovery Service; Summon, Primo, WorldCat Local, etc. provide unified (or central) indexes of the library licensed materials in addition to the locally held content, i.e., the library catalog.

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What to consider when subscribing?

Luther and Kelly listed the following criteria:• Content: Scope, depth, richness of metadata, updates,

local content, etc.• Search: Interface, relevancy, customization, navigation

tools, incorporation of existing access tools, support of new trends, i.e. mobile and social networking

• Fit: easy to implement, compatibility, vendor responsiveness and customer support.

• Cost: New, Replace other tools and justification in light of libraries’ goals and objectives.

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Our Experience

• 2005 Federated Search Engine (Zportal)• 2009 LinkOut• 2010 WoldCat Local Trial • 2011 EDS Trial • 2012 Zportal cancellation• 2012 360 Link Resolver• 2013 Google Scholar• 2013 SUMMON Trial

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ZPortal

• No Arabic support• Security: It involves the opening of some

ports outside the university firewalls• End-user overwhelmed with # of hits• Continuous maintenance and update• Unable to cover all licensed databases• Unable to use each database’s features

and capabilities to the maximum

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PupMed linking via Linkout

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We use PubMed LinkOut tool to link our medical content.

WorldCat Local

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• Our catalog records are available• Barrier: No real time records• Configuration done by vendor

http://lau.worldcat.org• WorldCat Local has dominated usability studies

of discovery tools published to date (Fagan et al, 2012).

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A reclamation project is currently in progress to update all our OCLC holdings.

EBSCO Discovery Services

• Configuration done by vendor

• Difficult to maintain (back to Zportal) problems)

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SUMMON

• We are using the core of SUMMON to locate our journals and to link our resources.

• We opted not to go with the complete solution for technical and budgetary reasons.

We just opted to:

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360 Link Resolver

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This is misleading to our users

Google Scholar

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Linking via ProQuest Central (SUMMON?)

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Challenges

Fagan et al, had several concerns, we selected the following: • To differentiate between source types in

the integrated results sets.• To limit large results sets effectively.• To understand the scope of the tool.• To keep important differences between

disciplinary searching and discipline-specific strategies or limits.

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• According to Breeding none of the discovery services can really live up to the expectation of users -in having a single search box to find content from all library resources- mainly for libraries with large numbers of electronic subscriptions.

• “One of the most important areas of development will be to close the gaps on content not yet available in discovery” (Breeding, 2012).

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Future Challenges

• To retrieve results objectively (without bias to one publisher over another).

• To keep pace with innovations such as mobile readers and Patron-driven acquisitions.

• To situate the discovery tool and specialized tools within libraries web presence.

• To connect to institutional repositories.• To prepare users to work with the large

numbers of results returned by discovery tools.

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Current Barriers

• Currently our library catalog records are not discoverable.

• We need to have our MARC records uploaded on real time basis i.e., add-update-delete.

• Common problem for all discovery services, the link between our ILS and discovery tools is not operational yet, mainly the circulation integration.

• Accuracy of Linking:– Discrepancies in linking items, whereby different levels are

available: Article level and Journal level, etc.

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Our Choice

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• Using Link Resolver to identify LAU Libraries resources:

– 360 Link (SerialsSolutions)– Aggregators Platforms– PubMed (LinkOut)– Google Scholar

Tips

Laurel Tarulli gave the following tips in her blog about choosing a discovery tool:• Look at what your competitors are doing.• Contact other libraries.• Don’t be afraid to speak with colleagues at

other libraries about their experiences and opinions.

http://laureltarulli.wordpress.com/2009/02/05/choosing-a-discovery-tool/

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Conclusion

• LAU Libraries are not against discovery tools, rather awaiting “the perfect solution”

• “If Google addresses questions of content coverage in Google Scholar, or introduces other game-changing innovations, will Google Scholar become a serious competitor that dramatically alters the market?”

Let’s wait and see

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References

Breeding, M. (2012). Looking forward to the next generation of discovery services. Computers in Libraries, 32(2), 28-31. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/926951810?accountid=27870

Fagan, J. C., Mandernach, M., Nelson, C. S., Paulo, J. R., & Saunders, G. (2012). Usability test results for a discovery tool in an academic library. Information Technology and Libraries (Online), 31(1), 83-112. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1022274255?accountid=27870

Jody, C. F., Mandernach, M., Carl, S. N., Jonathan, R. P., & Saunders, G. (2012). Usability test results for a discovery tool in an academic library. Information Technology and Libraries (Online), 31(1), 83-112. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1022274255?accountid=27870

Luther, J., & Maureen, C. K. (2011). The next generation of discovery. Library Journal, 136(5), 66-n/a. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/855474467?accountid=27870

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