My ContentWeb-Scale Discovery ServicesAbstractIntroductionWhat is Web Scale DiscoveryNeed and ScopeComponents of web Scale Discovery Service Content Technology Harvester Metadata mapping Central Index Link Resolvers Relevancy Algorithms InterfaceMajor Players Web Scale Discovery Market LandscapeFactors to be considered while selecting a Discovery services Coverage in central Index Quality of Metadata Integration Possibilities of Subject Indexes Relevancy Ranking Algorithms Integration Possibilities of ILS Integration Possibilities of Institutional Repository Advanced features in Discovery Layer Enhancement options and features Local SupportSteps in implementation Preparing resource sheet which includes all the subscribed resources of a library Content Analysis Catalogue Integration Institutional Repository integration Other Services Such as Libguides, Learning Management Systems Integration Customization, Branding etc. Set up the authentication process Testing Promotion activitiesMaintenanceEvaluationConclusion
Web-Scale Discovery Services
Abstract
Web Scale Discovery Services are be coming the widely adopted information retrieval solution in libraries across the world to connect its patrons with the relevant information they seek. In lieu with the would trend, resources discovery solution implementation is gathering momentum in Indian libraries also. Considering the Indian libraries scenario, this paper attempts to provide an overview of library web scale discovery solutions, it's need in Indian libraries, important parameters to be considered for evaluation of discovery services, essential factors to be considered prior to implementation, stages of implementation and finally some thoughts on post implementation analysis for measuring the success.
Introduction
In many university libraries, the main search option presented on the library website start page is often a web-scale discovery system. Subsequently, the web-scale discovery system, or WSDS, is a service heavily used by both student and librarians at university and their libraries. Because of its presence and prevalent use by students and librarians the WSDS has a key role when it comes to how students seek, find and use information, as well as how librarians approach instruction for students in information seeking. Academic libraries all over the world have implemented WSDS, and sweden is no exception. Therefore, we feel it is appropriate to take a closer look at the implication. WSDS have had for libraries at Swedish universities, more specifically in the areas of library instruction and students information literacy.
Web scale discovery services are becoming an integral part of libraries information gathering armoury. These service are able to use a single interface to seamlessly integrate results from a wide range of online sources, emulating a Google like search experience to the users. Web Scale Discovery solution is getting wide acceptance from library community which is evident from the fact that many libraries are replacing their federated search solutions of the past decade and adopting this state-of-the-art technology In lieu with the world trend, resources discovery solution implementation is gathering momentum in Indian libraries also. As an evolving technology, Discovery services pitch wide set of challenges for libraries web scale discovery implementation is really creating an information system that integrates nearly all library content to a single platform. Information professionals are the coordinators of all these process and it is essential that they should have a good understanding about the concepts of web scale discovery solution, its technology. major players and evaluation parameters of selecting a discovery service, its implementation procedures and post implementation maintenance etc.
2. What is Web Scale Discovery
Web scale discovery services are those integrated web based services with major potential to transform the nature of library systems. These services are offered as cloud computing model and have the capacity to more easily connect researchers with the library's vast information repository including remotely hosted resources and local content. It provides a unified plattopen for library users to access and search from all the library resources to get single set of results by providing a google like experience with the following basic features.
• Unified platform to search all the resource including licensed, open and local collection.
• Pre-harvested central index of metadata.
• Google like single search box.
• Single results list for all collections.
• Relevancy ranking across entire results.
• Full featured user interface.
• Facets and tools for narrowing results.
• Holding and status information for library catalogue items.
• Connections to full text.
• Infrastructure, processing and Indexing provided and maintained remotely by the vendor.
3. Need and Scope
Discovery solutions are really a grest tool that help libraries in theirtriveto bring back their users, many of whom rely heavily on Google for their research by providing "one-stop" access to librarys subscribed resource. Libraries have to take a wise decision in adopting this solution after considering the range of resources they subscribe, possible impact on users and the cast factor.
In Indian context, big library systems like university libraries, IIMs, IITs, AIIMS etc subscribe lots of resources like electronic, journals books and databases-and their own digital repositories and OPACs and many of them are part of different consortiums. Libraries users are in a very advantageous position regarding access of resources but often in the confusion, from where to start and which resource to be used to get their information. This force users to depend on google like search engines to get their information. Many studies show that many of the resources are under utilized due to lack of information to users regarding the availability of such resources in library. Web scale discovery solutions eliminate this confusion and provide single search box environment to users to retrieve all the relevant information from multiple sources that are subscribed by the library. It also provides fair opportunity to all the resources to get retrieved and utilised. Many cost benefits analysis studies have reported that resources usages have been increased by many folds after implementation of discovery service and thus substantiate the cast effectiveness of the system. In case of research libraries, even through their user base is less compared to university and other big library systems, discovery solution can make a difference in reducing the valuable search time of rearchers and also better chance in utilizing the near optimal utilization of library subscribed resources. Indian Institute of Spices Research, Kozhikode is one of the best examples for Research libraries in India who adopted discovery solution. They have only around hundred FTF, still they subscribed EBSCO discovery service in the year 2012, considering the value to researchers and retain the subscription for the third consecutive year.
4. Components of web Scale Discovery Service
Web scale discovery service constitutes two important components, content of resources coverage is the prime factor and the second component is appropriate technologies to make available the relevant information to the library users from available content. This include technologies that facilitate to harvest, index, search and retrieve the content and user interface platform features to provide a user friendly envisioment to users.
Quality of web scale discovery services depends on the comprehensiveness of contents that gets indexed, efficiency, of metadata harvesting system and the speed of processing and delivering the requested data over web interface in response to users request.
4.1 Content
Normally, a web scale discovery system covers all informative contents that scholarly users are interested. Web scale discovery service are able to index a variety of content, whether hosted locally or remotely. Local content can include library, ILS records, digital collections institutional repository content, and content from locally developed and hosted databases. In addition, web scale discovery services pre-index remotely hosted content, whether purchased or licensed by the library. This latter set of contents-hundreds of millions of items- can include items such as e-books, publisher or aggregator content for tens of thousand of full text journals, content from abstracting and indexing databases, and materials hosted in open access repositories. It may consist of free resources or of commercials publishers. Free content may include institutional archives of universities, research organizations etc and also from open archives journals and publications. Harvesting of free content and creating its indexes can be made available with the appropriate technology but the distinction lies in the coverage of commercial contents. As content coverage is the most important parameter in deciding the quality of the discovery system, the comprehensiveness of commercial content is a decisive factor. Commercial web scale discovery, vendors have brokered agreements with content providers (publishers, aggregators), allowing them to pre-inder item metadata and/or full text content (unlike the traditional federated search model) This approach lends itself to extremely rapid search and return of results ranked by relevancy, which can them be sorted in various ways according to the researcher's whims (publication date, item type, full text only, etc.). Different publishers are practicing different policies in providing full text content to web scale discovery providers. In many cases, the publishers are provide the full text content for indexing purposes. Some publishers are providing their metadata only for indexing purpose. vendors can develop multiple content streams for the same, finite content. For any given article, there are lots of potential sources for that exact article, not just the original primary publisher. It depends on service provider's policy to identify the apt sources to be indexed in the system.
4.2. Technology
Web scale discovery systems make use of mash-ups of many technologies and tools to harvest, index, store, search, and retrieve the content in response to user queries through a unified web interface. The following are the core technology elements.
4.2.1 Harvester
Harvester is one of the most important tools to bring the content to the central index of the system. Each vendor has agreements with several content suppliers form whom they harvest materials. In addition, they harvest locally held material such as existing library catalogues and institutional repositories within the library using protocols such as OAI-PMH and FTP. Automated transfer routines, load tables, and indexing steps are in place to add newly published content and to keep the index up to date.
4.2.2 Metadata mapping
Metadata coverage and it's mapping is a very important factor in deciding the quality of the system. Some providers cover only "thin metadata" with few record. f ields, including additional abstracting and indexing by dedicated staff, or includes authors-supplied subject heading and abstracts. One vendor (EBSCO) is providing access to complete and comprehensive metadata from well established content databases through platform blending.
Platform blending :
Platform blending is the technology to infuse results from important subject indexes into the discovery experience for users. This integration is really useful for users to get the benefit of thick quality metadata done by special subject experts of such indexing/abstracting databases. Metadata standards used in various resources may differ and thus make it necessary for web scale discovery system to normalize the harvested metadata in to a common schema or record type. Also metadata for the same item may be received from multiple content providers such as the original publisher, aggregatons etc, have to be joined through common match points and, through normalization and de-duplication processes to make it rich, and accurate, highly discoverable and relevant record.
4.2.3 Central Index
The normalized, de-duplicated meladata is aggregated in a huge central index database. The processed index is hosted in a cloud enviroment maintained by the service provider against which searches are performed in response to user queries. Web scale discovery systems utilize automated processes that allow new content to be added and indexed quickly. Different content providers provide new content on a variable basis, and content is indexed and included in the index on a schedule appropriate to the content, which, for example, may be daily for newspaper content and monthly for a monthly journal. The central index continuous to grow when new items are getting published by existing content providers and agreement with news content providers.
4.2.4 Link Resolvers
Web scale discovery service makes use of open URL - compliant link resolver software to work with the vast majority of information resources in the market today. It works in connecting the full text and objects associated with library's subscriptions and local repositories to provide direct access. Web scale discovery service providers make agreements with content providers to collaborate as targets to provide full text access to users based on their subscription.
4.2.5 Relevancy Algorithms
Relevance ranking in web scale discovery systems is an attempt to measure how closely a document or entry fits possible search terms. Search tools that display results in relevance ranking order place their "best match", an entry with the highest relevance ranking on the top of the list, instead of using an alphabetical, date modified, or other more concrete sorting method. Each vendor has developed its own proprietary relevancy algorithms. However, no system will even be perfect for all searches by all users. Some services allow the local library to influence the algorithm or otherwise promote or boost items within search results, and depending on the service, this boost may be at the item level, collection level, or database level. Some vendors may place greater emphasis on currency some on full text and some on subject headings, Depends on the relevancy algorithms, search results may be different.
4.2.6 Interface
User interface is the front end of the web scaleiscovery service. Interface is often hosted by the vendor, but some systems allow for local hosting of the interface, but the content index is always remotely hosted in the cloud. Users can search the index and get results though the web interface. Vendors are providing various advanced features and functionalities and often include the following;
• A single search box (but with a link to advanced search modes)
• Faceted searching.
• Each platform offers a modern interface with design elements expected by today's students. Faceted navigation (subject, content type, publication date range, etc) to help users drill down a large set of results.
• Inclusion of enriched content such as book cover images.
• Shopping carts to easily mark items and later export the materials (email, print, save)
• Social networking tools, etc.
• Web 2.0 Features.
• Ajax features to update data without re-loading the whole page, but only the relevant content.
• "Did you mean?" spell checkers.
• User configurable RSS feeds to easily re-run searches later.
5. Major Players
There are both commercial and source alternatives available in the web scale discovery market. The major handicap of open source options are of the difficulties in harvesting journal article metadata. It is very difficult for an individual library to set up connectors for harvesting journal article metadata from thousands of publishers across the world-commercial discovery service providers collaborate with leading commercial publishers to harvest metadata for discovery central index. Still many libraries use open source options as front and discovery layer and subscribe commercial web scale discovery service for content part by utilizing discovery service API or similar methods. The following are the major commercial discovery services in the world.
Summon Web Scale Discovery by Serial Solution
Summon is one of the early entrants in to the library web scale discovery environment developed by serial solution and its first release was in July 2009. Summon is offered as a hosted software-as-a service solution.
EBSCO Discovery Services by EBSCO
Ebsco began development of Ebsco discovery service (EDS) in 2008. Public announcement occurred in spring 2009, and after a beta period concluding later that year, public release occurred in early 2010.
Primo Central by Ex libris
Ex Libris began development of its next-generation discovery layer, primo, in 2005, with official public release occurring in 2007. Primo central, Ex libris's web scale discovery component, was officially released in mid 2010.
5.1 Web Scale Discovery Market Landscape
Library system report 2014 by Marshall Breeding, published in American libraries gives a broad overview of market presence of major discovery services. Report says "EBSCO" currently stands as the front runner, with a long lead of 5,612 library subscribers to EDS. OCLC reports 1,717 libraries with access to worldcat Local, though a smaller number use it as their primary discovery interface. Ex libris has licensed primo to 1,407 libraries and ProQuest reports 673 libraries using summon".
6. Factors to be considered while selecting a Discovery services
The following are the important factors to be considered before taking a decision to adopt any discovery service
1. Coverage in central Index
2. Quality of Metadata
3. Relevancy Ranking algorithm
4. Integration possibilities of ILS, Institutional Repository and other local databases.
5. Integration possibilities of subject indexes.
6. Advanced features in discovery layer.
7. Enhancement options and features.
8. Local technical support.
6.1 Coverage in central Index
Central index is the knowledge base of a discovery service. As searchers are made against this knowledge index, comprehensiveness and quality of information retrieval primarily depends on the coverage. Primarily there are two factors to be taken in to consideration.
- First thing is that library has to ensure that majority of their subscribed content are available in central index of the discovery provider. For making the coverage analysis, Library should request the discovery vendors to proxide a coverage analysis report. Coverage analysis reports are of two types. First level analysis provides the resources which are covered and not covered in discovery. Second level analysis provides individual journal/ e-book wise coverage. Also it is advisable to check the extent of metadata coverage whether it is available from Vol. 1 to Issue 1 of journals and whether "publisher provided full text" is available in central index for searching purpose.
- Apart from coverage of library subscribed resources, it is important to look at the total coverage in the central index. This can be obtained by getting the content partners list from discovery provider to whom they have agreement to get the metadata indian libraries have to consider the fact that the coverage of majority of indian publications is either not available or partially available in central index of different discovery providers, Libraries can request to indian publishers and discovery providers to have collaboration to include more Indian content in discovery services.
6.2 Quality of Metadata
Metadata Quality has great influence in the discoverability of documents. There is high chance that documents with enhanced metadata would get retrieved compared to items with skeleton metadata. Some of the discovery providers have comparatively enriched metadata by incorporating subject indexes in the central index and also started the initiatives of mapping thesaurus to the central index which would further enhance the discoverability. It is not advisable to go for a discovery service which is using crawled metadata from the web and doesn't have any agreement for publisher provided metadata. Most of the cases crawled metadata is partial as some of the publisher's site denies entry to web spiders.
6.3 Integration Possibilities of Subject Indexes
Most of the well know subject index providers are not participating in discovery services. But some discovery service vendors make it possible through platform blending of subject index with discovery platform for Mutually Licensed Content. For example EBSCO discovery service can integrate subject index with discovery solution provided that the customer should subscribe subject indexes through EBSCO host platform. As of now other discovery service providers do not have this feature. Through this method, the integrated abstracting and indexing databases are fully searchable in their original unmodiffied form including all A and I metadata. This helps in retrieving richest sources of malabata based on subject based relevance and controlled vocabularies. Psyclnfo, INSPEC etc are some of the examples of A/I content that can be shown in a WSD system if the library subscribes to psyclnfo and INSPEC.
6.4 Relevancy Ranking Algorithms
Relevancy ranking is one of the decisive factors in the success of a discovery system. It determines to measure how closely a document or entry fits a document on entry fits possible search terms. Search tools that display results in a relevance ranking order place their "best match" an entry with the highest relevance ranking on the list. Each discovery service provider has developed its own proprietary relevancy algorithms. However, no system will ever be perfect for all searchers by all users. Some services allow the local library to influence the algorithm or otherwise promote or boost items within search results and depending on the service, this boost may be at the item level, collection level, or database level. Some vendors may place greater emphasis on currency, some on full fext, and some on subject headings. Traditionally most of the discovery service providers give emphasis on matching the metadata in deciding the relevancy. But many studies reported that users expect additional raking options based on the no of citations and downloads. User defined relevancy ranking is another desired feature expecting from discovery services in future.
6.5 Integration Possibilities of ILS
ILS Integration is one of the major factors to be considered while selecting a discovery service. Discovery service providers facilitate various options for ILS integration. The most important factor is that the ILS should allow meta data harvesting (OAI/PMH compatible) or has the feature of exporting MARC-21 metadata. OAI/ PMH is the preferred method as periodic harvesting of metadata from ILS to discovery index is ensured without human intervention. If the ILS system doesn't have OAI/PMH compatibility next option is export the MARC-21 or MARC XML metadata and load in to discovery providers usually provide an exclusive FTP account for libraries to load their MARC records. FTP space basically consists of two folder viz. "Full folder" for loading the full set of MARC records at the beginning and "UPDATE Folder" for loading the new records or updated records periodically. Some ILS vendors helps the libraries by including a script in ILS system to perform a crone job to upload metadata in to discovery FTP space whenever records are modified or new records are added in ILS system. Libraries can insist ILS vendors for providing such options.
Catalogue integration is one of the major challenges that indian libraries are facing while implementing discovery services. None of the indian libraries are having ILS with OAI/PMH compatibility. The worst part is that some of the leading commercial ILS system doesgat have MARC 21 export facility on its vendors are not willing to provide this facility to uper. Thereason might be their fears that customers may more to open source ILS System once they get the MARC data. It is advisable for libraries to make it compulsory to get the MARC export facility in ILS system while signing contract with the ILS vendors. Some of the discovery providers extend their support to libraries in generating MARC 21 data from ILS system. For example, IIM Calcutta has converted their LIBSYS ILS data in to MARC and integrated with EBSCO discovery service with the help of the discovery service provider.
6.6 Integration Possibilities of Institutional Repository
Generally discovery services prefer dublin care metadata and OAI/PMH compatibility for harvesting, But some libraries might have different metadata structure for their IR and non compatibility to OAI/PMH. In such cases libraries has to make it sure that discovery service providers help library for some alternative method for integration. Another issue is that some IR implementations have dumny links in place where persistent links are expected and eventually, link back from discovery to IR record is not possible in such cases unless library correct all the dummy links with the actual location links and upload the corrected metadata in the FTP space provided by the discovery service provider.
6.7 Advanced features in Discovery Layer
User interface is the front end of the web scal discovery service. Interface features are diverse in different discovery service but the following feature are usually present
- A single search box (link to advanced search modes)
- Faceted navigation (subject, content type, journal, publisher, date range, etc.) to help users drill down a large set of results.
- Inclusion of enriched content such as book cover images.
- Personalized folders to hold and export the search results for future use.
- Social networking options to share the results.
- Web 2.0 features such as tags, notes, collaboration etc.
- Ajax features to update data without re-loading the whole page, but only the relevant content.
- "Did you mean?" features to guide the users to the connect spelled words.
- Provision of RSS feeds.
6.8 Enhancement options and features
In order to provide enhancement user experience, discovery solutions provide many features over and above the basic functions. Some of the notable features brought out by different vendors are given below.
- Catalogue enhancement such as including book jackets, table of contents, books by the same author, related books, google books preview, users review etc: Discovery systems make use of ISSN number from the MARC record and pull out additional information from third party service. So, ISSN number is a pre-requisite for getting such enhancement options in discovery. In many Indian libraries, It is noticed that ISSN numbersare notentered as part of the records in most cases and hence not in a position to get enhanced catalogue integration features from discovery services.
-Journal ranking such as scimago journals rank with H-index details (free), Infector (free), journals citation report (for mutual customers) etc. Some discovery service providers make available these options through widgets.
- Setting up search alerts through e-mail, RSS etc.
- Export to Reference Management tool (Endnote, zotero, Procite, Reference Manager etc.)
- Option for citation style formats.
- Personalization options like making notes while reading and share with others.
-Bookmark to social networking tools.
- Sending on sharing the permanent links of retrieved documents.
6.9 Local Support
Discovery serrice implementation demands lots of customizations for an ideal setup to provide maximum possible features for a comfortable user experience. As en evolving technology, librarians are not very expert in customizations and setting up of the system normally all discovery solution providers have expert implementation specialists responsible for setting up and customizations of the discovery systems. System librarians works in tune with implementation specialist and learn the required skill sets for customizations. Constant support is required from service providers through out the service period. It is always advisable to insist local implementation specialist support within the country those who can visit the site to help the customers as and when needed.
7. Steps in implementation
Discovery service implementation consists of many steps starting from preparing the resources sheet of the library through customizations to integrating single search box in library web site for providing easy access to users. The following are the mayor steps included in the implementation of a discovery service.
- Preparing resource sheet which includes all the subscribed resources of a library.
- Content analysis
- Decide upon the free and open source resources to be included.
- Procedures for catalogue integration.
- Procedures for IR integration.
- Enhance the service by integrating with other services such as Lib-guides, Learning management systems etc.
- Customizations, branding etc.
- Set up the authentie process.
- Test usability
- Promotions activities.
7.1 Preparing resource sheet which includes all the subscribed resources of a library
Resources sheet preparation is the starting point of discovery implementation. Library has to fill the resources sheet in a prescribed format provided by the discovery service provider. The following details are required about the subscribed resources of the library.
Electronic Journals
- If library subscribes packages from publisher, the resource sheet should contain the name of package, publisher name, and year of subscription. For example, science direct environmental science collection 1997 to 2014.
- If library subscribes individual. journals, the details such as name of journal, publisher name, print and e-lSSN, years of subscription etc. Should be provided in the resources sheet.
Electronic Books
- The resource sheet should include the necessary details like title, ISBN of the books. Another options is including the e-books as part of library catalogue for integrating with discovery service.
7.2 Content Analysis
In this step, discovery service provider would do an analysis of customer's resources and provide a report mentioning the list of resources which are covered in central index and the resources. Some discovery service providers facilitate alternative options such as widgets, federated connectors etc. for integrating non covered resources in the central index. It is important that libraries should satisfy the coverage of its resources in central index based on its users best interest.
7.3 Catalogue Integration
Library has to upload the catalogue MARC records in the FTP space provided by the discovery service provider and has to fill up a questionnaire which normally includes necessary details such as MARC 21 tags used for important fields such as ISBN, Call No, and location etc. It is also necessary to provide a unique link example to connect to a single record in the ILS system. Discovery catalogue implementation specialists map customers metadata with discovery index and also construct a custom link-back from discovery search result page to ILS records. Implementation and Real Time Availability check is another important step in catalogue integration. Real Time Availability check feature provides the availability status of ILS search results in discovery interface. This implementation requires Z39.50 details of the ILS system. Another alternative method of implementation of Real Time Availability check is through screen scrapping method. In India, most of the ILS system don't have proper Z39.50 servers and screen scrapping method has been used for RTAC implementations in many cases.
7.4 Institutional Repository integration
OAI - PMH is the preferred method of harvesting data from institutional repository. Most institutional or digital repository software vendors suport Dublin Core metadata export and therefore can utilize OAI-PMH harvest. With OAI - PMH discovery service vendors can harvest your records on a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule. when the harvest occurs institutional repositary data will automatically be updated in discovery service. The institutional repository questionnaire asked the customer to provide their institution's OAI-PMH URL that retrieves the records from their repository or local archives. If your IR system does not support OAI/PMH, FTP method can be used to upload the Dublin Cope metadata. When uploading via FTP, files must be in XML and the records must contain unique identifiers.
7.5 Other Services Such as Libguides, Learning Management Systems Integration
Some of the discovery service provider facilitate discovery integration options to connect to Lib-guides, learning management system like Moodle and other library systems. Discovery API can also be used for such kind of integration. Libraries can access discovery service through library website, learning management system of any interface where discovery API can be integrated. For example, library can access discovery service through KOHA or any other ILS system by utilizing the API facility. API integration needs support personal with programming skills from library side.
7.6 Customization, Branding etc.
Service customization enhances the search experience for your users by adding convenience and useful functionality to the discovery interface while maintaining the look and feel of your institution web site. Broadly, customization falls under two categories. One is functionality customizations and the other one look and feel coustomization. Functionality customization normally consists of setting up the search and display preferences, setting up custom linking, Link resolver customization etc. Propercustomizations based on users requirements allow library to seamlessly integrate its resources with discovery service and deliver services effectively. Look and feel customization consists of branding, setting up interface colour, skin etc. It is advisable to request discovery portal admin credentials from the service provider and learn the customization option so that library can manage it without depending on service provider each and every occasion.
7.7 Set up the authentication process
It is the discretion of the library to decide whether to provide public access to discovery service or restricted to its authenticated users only. Public access or guest access can be provided up to abstract level and prompt for credentials for additional functionalities or full text. Authentication refers to identifying the users for providing the access to discovery service. Discovery service providers offer several methods of authentication. The basic point to be noted is that discovery service is only a platform which facilitate to access multiple publishers resources and hence library should make it sure that authentication is set for all the subscribed resources with respective publishers. The widely used authentication methods are as fellows.
IP Authentication :
It is the traditional method of identifying users requesting access to vendor databases or services in campus. users gain access based on their computer or site's IP address (static IP is required) which is pre - authenticated in service providers server. Referring URL authentication: it providers access to discovery service from a secure home page on the library's web server. This identifies users by the originating URL (the page from which they come) and eliminates the need for users IDs. Discovery service system validates the user if they are coming from an approved URL. If a user is trying to log in from a different URL, the system will not authenticate.
User ID and Password authentication :
In this method, discovery service provider allows library to provide user name and password for its users. This can be useful to users who access discovery service remotely. The library administration can provide users with a user ID and password, providing instant access to the service from their home or any where elsa with internet connection.
Athens authentication :
Athens is an identity management services to provide single sign-on to protected resources together with full user management capability. Most of the commercial discovery service support athens authentication facility to users.
Shibboleth authentication :
The shibboleth software is open source remote access management systems. If you are using shibboleth to authenticate your users, you must set up your shibboleth affiliations.
7.8 Testing
After implementation, the system has to be tested to make sure that all the functionalities are working as expected. It is advisable to set up a library team for this purpose and check each and every functionalities and also some sample linking test to verify the linking to publisher's sites, custom catalogue, IR etc. Testing team should make a document for testing by including all the parameters to be tested. Error should be reported to rectify the defects with the help of discovery service provider's implementation specialist. This exercise would give a good opportunity for the staff in learning and troubleshooting the system in future course of action also.
7.9 Promotion activities
After the implementation and testing next step is promoting the the service among the users and library staff. Usey community might be depending on google or some other ways to search their information and are used to it. A change over is difficult unless the library communicate the advantages and functionalities of discovery service to the attention of users. The following methods are some of the best measures for promoting discovery service.
- Integrate discovery search box on library website. This would definitely get the attention of users. Many studies showed that after the integration of search box on discovery website, usage has been increased many fold. Library can also brand the discovery search box using some catchy names. Some of the examples are: FIND it !, OneSearch, Quick Search etc.
- Provide training to library staff and users.
- Prepare discovery searching user guide and videos and put it on the library web site.
Discovery search box on library website : Example: MIT Library, Jawaharlal Nehru University Library website.
8. Maintenance
Discovery solution requires constant attention to make it up-to-date. Some of the areas which require routine updatation are;
- Data loads
• MARC data upload to FTP space provided by the discovery service provider. If library's catalogue is not OAI/PMH compatible, one staff should be assigned to upload the catalogue MARC records. Some ILS vendors help the library by writing a script in their ILS for some cron job to upload the MARC data automatically to discovery service FTP space without human intervention.
• Updataing - e- Resources: After the initial set up of e-resources, library has to assign one staff member to update the resources details whenever change occups. This means subscribing additional resources on stops some of the existing subscriptions.
- Troubleshooting - access, linking There might occur problems in the access of the service due to IP address changes, URL change, remote access issues or some other reasons. Link error also may occup in cases due to various reasons. Library has to insist online support from the service provider to troubleshoot and solve the issues. Also it is better to understand the reason for failure in each case so that library can solve the issues without depending on service provider all the time.
- Keeping up with new development, in the tool - explaining to library staff and users being an evolving technology, service providers introduce new feature and functionalities on discovery services and library has to notify to users regarding the new developments.
9. Evaluation
It is important to measure the success the success of the system to substantiate the huge amout spent on this service. Library has to conduct user studies to know how people are using the service and its impact on usage pattern etc. Library should document the trouble report if any and request the immediate attention of service provide to tackle the issues. It so also advisable to analyse usage statistics such as total sessions, total searches, full text download, abstract level usage, database level usage, catalogue and IR usage through discovery etc.
There are some good studies on evaluation parameters and case studies of discovery implementations in libraries which would be helpful in understanding various libraries experiences with different discovery solutions.
American Library Association's technical report "web scale discovery service" by Jason Vaughan is the first comprehensive work on web scale discovery services which includes chapters starting from "Web Scale Discovery - what and why?" to implementation and evaluation methods.
In another work by the some author "Evaluating and selecting a library web scale discovery service" vaughan provides a frame of evaluation, based on the evaluation process used at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Libraries. It hight light the important internal and external steps library staff may wish to consider as they evaluate these discovery services for their local environment.
David Bietila and Todolson Consider a three-tiered approach to the application, considering technical, functional, and usability layers. As the current generation of discovery tools is very flexible the process discussed uses an initial pass of evaluation to gain insight into the abilities of the tool and how users approach it.
The results of some interesting usability case studies have also been published which depicts the results of evaluation studies of web scale discovery services implemented in different universities.
At Grand Valley State University, Doug Way Conducted an analysis of usage statistics after implementing the discovery tool summon in 2009; the usage statistics revealed an increased use of full-text downloads and link resolver software but a decrease in the use of care subject databases.
North Carolina State University Libraries released a final report about their usability study of summon. Study reveals users were satisfied with the ability to search the library catalog and article databases with a single search, but users had mixed results with known item searching and confusion about narrowing facets and results ranking.
Boock, Chadwell, and Reese conducted a usability study of wouldcat local at Oregon State University. They summarized that users found known - title searching to be easier in the library catalog but found topical searches to be more effective in would cat local. The participants preferred worldCat Local for the ability to find articles and search for materials in other institutions.
Kemp reports in his study that after the f irst year following summon implemention at the university of Texas at San Antonio Libraries, the statistics on the use of collection showed significant increases in the use of electronic resource : Link resolver use increased 84%, and full text article downloads increased 23%. During the same period, use of the online catalog decreased 13.7%, and use of traditional indexing and abstracting database searches decreased by 5%. The author concludes that the increases in collections usage are related to adoption of a Web Scale discovery service.
Anita in her case study of EBSCO discovery service at llinois State University's Milner Library states that EBSCO discovery services has resulted in a significant increase in Milner's database usage.
Library Communication of Jawaharlal Nehru University, India, reveals that full text download has been increased at an enormous rate of more that 2100% after the implementation of EBSCO discovery service.
10. Conclusion
Discovery services are fairly new entrant in library technology field and many information professionals do not have much idea regarding its technology, expected functionalities, implementation procedures etc. The best way to learn and experience WSD system is to request fully customized trial from providers including catalogue and institutional repository integration. it is advisable to go for multiple providers trials and evaluate all systems based on the parameters discussed in this article as well as the suggestions from early adopters of discovery solution. User's requirements are the most important factors to be considered while implementing discovery service and information professionals should take utmost care in each step to make the best tailor made discovery service for the library.
collection of interlinked web pages?
Online Portal ?
Web Portal?
Website ?
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