Discovery Tools and Services for Academic Libraries
Alekha karadia Asst. Librarian Bhima Bhoi College,Rairakhol Email ID:
[email protected] Mob: 9124037352
Swapnita Pati Library Trainee National Institute of Technology, Rourkela Email ID:
[email protected] Mob: 9937141389
Abstract: Libraries invest huge amount in its collection development thru various information resources or platforms every year but most of such resources sometimes found under-utilized due to lack of powerful search tool that provide single interface .Library professionals play a prominent role in enabling tools to its users that can be made accessible such resources to enhance its usage. Due to enormous growth in content and not adopting proper tools by libraries, users may fail in accessing the relevant information from such resources. This will also distract the users' interest and hinders in achieving the objective of library i.e. connecting the right information to the right user at right time. Hence libraries identified web-scale discovery as a potential successor to federated search and identified a way to make the library’s print resources more visible to library users by providing a single search interface that could serve the needs of the diverse populations that use the library resources. This article tries to cover the concept of discovery tools, why need in a academic library and Various tools on discovery services (commercial and open source tools) are explained here by presenting how these tools will boost the search and support researchers in academic library. Keywords: Discovery Services, Discovery Tools, Federated Search, Single Search Interface
Introduction: Discovery solutions have become a critical element within most library systems, playing a vital role in the effort to showcase the value of a library’s collection, providing a unified index and changing the way resources are searched. As libraries have shifted focus from print catalogues and resources to OPACs, e-journals, eBooks, subject indexes and full-text databases, it’s become necessary for the
perception and habits of the search experience to evolve as well as for both end users and library administrators. The beginning, discovery solutions were focused on being a faster approach to searching a library’s collection through a single search box, without regard to the quality of the search experience. Librarians in the academy who work to optimize collection access face an onerous task given the complex nature of information and the information world. This complexity is reflected on academic library websites, which typically feature an online public access catalog (OPAC) as well as lists of database links, all of which function independently of one another. As library users become more and more comfortable with each new innovation in the Web-based world, libraries have found themselves struggling to provide an experience that seems as effortless as Google yet directs users to resources owned or licensed by the library. Discovery tools have been developed to address this problem, but their effectiveness depends on the quality of the metadata created to represent collection materials.
What is Discovery Tool? Discovery tools as web software that searches journal-article and library-catalogue metadata in a unified index and presents search results in a single interface. This differs from federated search software, which searches multiple databases and aggregates the results with federated search software; results is on the search algorithm and relevance ranking as well as each tool’s algorithms and relevance rankings. Discovery tools, which import metadata into one index, apply one set of search algorithms to retrieve and rank results. Federated search software was unable to completely fulfill user’s expectations because of its limited technology. Now that discovery tools provide a truly integrated search experience, with greatly improved relevance rankings, response times, and increased consistency, libraries can finally begin to meet this area of user expectation. Their usual prominence on library websites may direct traffic away from carefully cultivated and organized collections of online resources. Discovery tools offer both opportunities and challenges for library instruction, depending on the academic discipline, users’ knowledge, and information-seeking need. Examples of discovery tools include EBSCO Discovery Service, summon service (Serial Solution), Encore Discovery (Innovative interface) and Primo Central (Ex Libris Group) etc.
What is the services provided by the discover tool? Libraries have a strategic interest in the tools and technologies that facilitate the discovery of and access to the resources for the communities that they serve. These tools have seen steady advancement
over recent decades, making great strides in the scope and depth of materials addressed and in providing library users ever more convenient ways to access these materials.The progress seen in the successive generations of technology beginning from online catalogs, to metasearch tools, to the current generation of index-based discovery services represents an incredible improvement. Now users actually start their discovery with a search engine provided by the library itself, and which directs them to the most appropriate content for their search that the library has available. That is called ‘library discovery services’, such as Summon, from ProQuest’s Serials Solutions business, EBSCO’s Discovery Service, and Ex Libris’ Primo Central, etc. all of which aim to put the library back at the center of search and information discovery. Library discovery services aim to index all the content a library has access to electronically (either by indexing the full text or just the metadata), as well as integrating records for print holdings and other content-types that are still available in physical form, such as maps, microform, photographic collections, and so on. Both open source and commercial products have been created in this category of discovery tool. Commercial examples of discovery tool include: •
Ex Libris: Ex Libris Primo was originally developed in 2006 as a new-generation interface to provide relevancy based search for materials managed by a library’s integrated library system, local content repositories, and other collections of interest that might be available for local indexing via the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) or batch record loading. Ex Libris later developed Primo Central as a managed central index of scholarly content. Primo uses Apache Lucene or SOLR as its technology for managing local indexes.
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BiblioCommons: Biblio Commons provides BiblioCore, which includes hosted discovery service relevancy-based retrieval, faceted navigation, and a variety of social and communityoriented features. BiblioCommons maintains a discovery index that includes an aggregation of its customers’ records from their respective ILS implementations.
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ProQuest AquaBrowser: ProQuest AquaBrowser Library provides an end-user index with faceted navigation and a cloud of search terms extracted from search results that can be used to execute new searches. AquaBrowser maintains a local index based on proprietary technology populated by records extracted and synchronized from the library’s ILS implementation.
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Encore: Encore, originally introduced in 2006, supplements or replaces the online catalog of Millennium with a new interface that features a single search box, faceted navigation, and results ordered by relevancy. Encore was originally designed to operate with automation systems other than those from Innovative, but saw very few implementations. Encore is currently only used by libraries using Millennium. Encore does not include its own article-level discovery index; Innovative works with EBSCO Information Services to integrate EBSCO Discovery Services for libraries that subscribe to both products. Encore also includes integration with e-book lending platforms.
Open Source examples of discovery tool include: •
Blacklight:Blacklight, originally developed by the University of Virginia, is based on a Ruby on Rails programming framework and Apache SOLR indexing, search, and retrieval technology. Blacklight provides a flexible toolkit for a wide variety of record types and is the predominant search interface to the Hydra Project digital asset management system.
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VuFind:VuFind, originally developed at Villanova University, is based on a PHP programming codebase and Apache SOLR indexing search and retrieval technology. VuFind has been implemented in thousands of libraries. Many of the projects work with forks of the original codebase and the development efforts can be characterized as independent and fragmented.
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eXtensible Catalog:eXtensible Catalog, “a research project launched in April 2006 by the River Campus Libraries of the University of Rochester, with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon foundation, has created a number of tools that complement the development of discovery products and services. The main outcomes of the project include a set of connectivity tools, including toolkits for the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAIPMH) and for NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol as well as the XC Metadata Services Toolkit. This toolkit offers utilities for the transformation and clean-up of metadata as it is extracted from repositories, such as library management systems, and loaded into discovery services. The eXtensible Catalog project has also created the XC Drupal Toolkit that provides a discovery interface with customizable faceted navigation based on content from repositories and the library website.
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WorldCatLocal: OCLC’s discovery services build on the foundation of WorldCat to make sure that information seekers find the library materials available from their own institutions and
from other libraries worldwide. Users have long indicated that it is the content that matters, regardless of format or source.No matter where users begin their search online, the global Web visibility provided byWorldCat.org and through syndication with online commercial partners such as Google, EasyBib and others mean that millions of users include your library in their search even when they didn’t start their search on a library website originally.And WorldCat Local is the Webscale discovery tool that provides your users access to all of your library’s purchased and licensed formats: electronic, digital and physical, presented in a single, simple view. The screen shot below shows a search result in EBSCO's and Summon, from ProQuest’s Serials Solutions discovery tool with results displaying in the large panel and facets arranged in the left panel.
EBSCO’s Full-Text Discovering Experience
NITR@ Summon Serialssolutions
Why use Discovery tool for Academic Library? Discovery tools are becoming increasingly popular in academic libraries. Academic Libraries acquire "content" from many different sources in many different formats. In an academic library's collection a researcher will find books, print magazines, newspapers, and journals, electronic article databases, videos, and much more. While the library's catalog has traditionally been the tool for searching for information owned by the library, the catalog normally does not include the capability of searching at the article level for materials that have appeared in magazines, journals, newspapers, and other collected works. A researcher normally will use the catalog to scour through the library's print and media collections and then use one or more of the library's research databases to search for articles that have been published in any number of periodical publications. Ultimately it makes sense that a library would strive to provide a single search for all of its resources, much as Google provides a single search
for information available on the Internet. Let's say that a library subscribes to 50 databases in order to help its researchers find information about articles published in a variety of magazines, trade publications and research journals. Some of the databases might have article information that includes subject indexing, author indexing, and abstracts, while other databases might also have the full text of the articles in addition to the indexing. Prior to the advent of discovery tools, researchers would need to search the library's catalog for information in its collections and then choose one or more databases to locate articles that would have been published in periodicals. There was no single search that would take care of everything that a library might have to offer. The discovery tool offers researchers the possibility of covering a good portion of a library's resources in a single search. A facet is a descriptive aspect of the item matching the search and might include things like historical time period, geographical location, subject heading, author, type of material, and periodical title. By using the facets that appear in a search result, a researcher can easily narrow down a list of hundreds or thousands of materials to a more reasonable number of results.
Advantages of Discovery tool: The advantages of discovery tools as a means for integrating a library's many disparate collections is a powerful development in making libraries more "user friendly." Discovery tools help users to search seamlessly across a wide range of local and remote library collections and provide relevance-ranked results. Web-scale discovery services for libraries help to (i)
connect users with the content from different sources,
(ii)
those services capable of searching quickly and seamlessly across a vast range of local and remote pre-harvested and indexed content and
(iii)
provide relevancy-ranked results in an intuitive interface expected by today’s information seekers
A researcher's discovery of relevant information on any topic.
Discovery system that brings a search to bear on most of its materials at one time goes a long way toward simplifying the research process.
Discovery tools generally report increased use of library resources.
Statistics also show a more even use of resources by exposing more specialized / lesser known products to more users.
Save the time of the users and relevant information show their needs.
Its searches multiple databases and aggregates the results with federated search in a single interface.
Disadvantages of discovery tool: However many libraries are finding that, while useful, discovery tools have not reached the inflated expectations of early adopters and replaced all other methods of searching for information. According to Research quoted by Aaron Tay from the National University of Singapore shows that on average about 40% of hits of databases come from discovery tools, meaning that 60% come from other routes. Faculty and research staff are also much less likely to use discovery tools, often preferring either open web sources such as Google Scholar or Mendelay or searching publisher databases directly.
Conclusion: Discovery tool are the important part of the library service’s offering. Each library will have different priorities and user need to consider, and any particular system may or may not meet those need. Discovery interfaces combined with integrated library solutions have evolved with the advantages of Integrated web-accessible Online Public Access Catalogues (OPAC), Web 2.0 features with customized search engines, personalized service features, One-stop resource portals incorporating meta-searching discovery tools, mobile accessibility, multilingual support and upcoming web-scale discovery, digital assets curtain and management services. It is predicted that in near future, the discovery tools in Indian Libraries could prove to be the ultimate reincarnation of one of the most familiar and most enduring of all library information retrieval devices. REFEENCES:
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