Discovering Discovery Tools - CILIP Yorkshire and Humberside event 16th May 2011
[I only discovered it on the day, but the Discovering Discovery Tools event organised by CILIP Yorkshire and Humberside looks like a really useful day. There were some useful tweets coming out and I decided to grab a few of them for future reference. I just grabbed the text, so have lost attribution of the original tweeter, sorry, and I'm probably breaking a whole load of etiquette in the process. Ironically, just after finishing this I discovered Storify which would have been ideal]
Discovering Discovery Tools
CILIP Yorkshire and Humbershide event 16th May 2011
http://www.cilip.org.uk/get-involved/special-interest-groups/ucr/divisions/yorks-humber/events/pages/default.aspx
Tweets from the day. See http://twapperkeeper.com/hashtag/ucryh for original sources.
Hud Uni's @daveyp gives v good advice - draw up your list of what you want before demos and measure them.
[CK that’s what we are currently doing]
Summon had 94% of HUD’s journals in their coverage
importance of getting yr subscribed journals indexed in resource discovery tool, Hudd 94%,allowed them to drop fed searching
Summon APIs recommended, now use Summon and 360Link, launched Aug 2010
used EZProxy to resolve access problems caused by previous link resolver
Academics thought Metalib was- e-resources - panic when proposal to cancel it and replace with Summon
'Journals staff found 360 link easy to use' to get definite list of journals
4000 Hud students use Summon each week
Summon usability study - found most students search with one or two keywords.
Research concludes that students impressed with Summon: easy, intuitive, quick to receive results
Students find Summon comparable with Google in terms of user experience, and superior to fed search tools
Found students didn't use facets; might have been due to focus group setup. Some users question quality of content - needs explained
HUD research shows UGs in particular want a 1-stop-shop – indication that Summon may help with retention
Need constant promotion and reinforcement of Summon otherwise users default back to Google
Hud use an electronic resources blog to keep users up to date with any issues with Summon
Hud get 3 or 4 reports of Summon probs per day. Usually with article level linking
Integrated problem reporting should be standard on any item page in a discovery service.
Create dummy MARC records to plug any gaps in coverage e.g.to link to library catalogue record for print resource, non-linked db etc
"Summon is bloody brilliant!" says Huddersfield PhD student.
Summon increasing usage of all resources - some by 4 or 5 times. Now harder to select cancellations as all resources are being used!
We need to be proactive about lobbying publishers who don't provide for/allow discovery tool integration
Use of A&I resources has plummeted since Summon launch. Need to look into what has happened to usage of f/t resources not in Summon
EBSCO Discovery at U of Liverpool
Important to Check *extent* of indexing of titles in a Resource Discovery tool: is the index backfile comprehensive?
Liv try to buy all poss databases through Ebsco, so they are inc in the discovery tool.
[CK vendor lock in?]
Ebsco discovery - Can have federated search to fill in gaps in content
Can add federated searches to EBSCO Discovery. Use this as an add-on to fill gaps. Liverpool have set up around 40 feds e.g. CSA
Extensive options available on the web admin interface for Ebsco Discovery - control for the librarians!
Liverpool turned off Discovery search of f/t of articles. Using this gave lots of trade pubs high in results; more academic if off
Liv have introduced focused profiles in Ebsco Discovery. eg No Historical Abstracts for Med students.
[CK like this flxibility: one common user interface but with different content/options]
Discovery - Very quick to implement, Almost no maintenance, few problems
No marketing of Discovery at Liv - just put it out there
EBSCO discovery at Liverpool taught by focussing on subject route,using Libguides
Launched libguides & Discover at same time. Pushing libguides. Discover and *other resources* linked from guides
"Researchers don't do complicated searches" - librarians do. Feel there's some truth in that!
Discovery-type services good for academics doing interdisciplinary research
that's why we [Edinburgh] chose to take two products for 12 months - it allows full user and integration testing
When we [edinburgh] had both products demo'd last yr, librarians liked EDS (comprehensive), usability experts liked Summon (simple)
Liverpool Discover not limited to full text only. Not finding this a problem - users want to know about articles even if not f/t
Discovery tool is just another subscription. If it doesn't work cancel it
Oxford Uni on Primo
SOLO was obtained to tie together lots of existing search tools
Oxford seen to be using the implementation of Primo as an uber-catalogue,or a federated lib cat search across local cats
Tagging is permitted w Primo but tags have been often v personal and not useful to anyone else
I like Oxford's requester link on SOLO 'I want this', nice and personal
Primo not pulling multiple editions of book into one record. Also problems ranking in date order.
Oxford found problems with FRBR in Primo
Oxford say some librarians didn't trust resource discovery tools,preferred catalogue. This is a problem with all tools,transparency
Perception that library catalogue results are more reliable than less ordered Primo results
Reader surveys at Ox showed Primo scored on ease of use, speed, wide range of facet refinability
User response showed they were v keen on facets in Primo at Oxford.
2 of 3 presentations so far have used library science students to analyse use of their discovery tools, carry out user surveys, etc
Users don't like the FRBR "versions" feature - confusing
Loss of browse search in Primo at Ox was only of concern to the librarians.
York St John on OCLC Worldcat.
York St John also used a Masters student to evaluate their OPAC and make recommendations for improvement.
Choice at York St J driven largely by price but features delivered have improved service greatly
give yourself plenty of time [to implement]
Very easy to create reading lists in WorldCat Local. Lists have static URLs and students can watch lists
However, "known item" searching isn't very good on WorldCat Local, a far as Y St J have experienced
[CK I think this is true for other discovery services as well]
Holdings information quite well hidden in WorldCat Local - have to scroll down screen
WorldCat local also has problems FRBRising different editions of books - joins records for some eds but not all so bks are missed
FRBR seems to a problem across most discovery tools. Also a problem in EBSCO Discovery. Seems okay in Encore
OCLC don't seem bothered about old eds hiding new eds in FRBR- showing most held not most recent. Not an issue in public libraries?
