Discovery Tools in AcademicLibraries: why, what and how?

Edith Falk

Chef Librarian

The Hebrew University Library Authority

Why not

• It is free• It is user friendly• It includes scientific resources and

even “gray” literature• It allows simultaneous search in

many resources• It allows saving in a private e-shelf

and creating a bibliography• It shows citations and other

parameters• It searches the full text• It links to the catalog of your local

library

•

? למה לא

It is difficult to determine with 100% accuracy all that Google Scholar searches.

• Google cannot:

– Sort/search by disciplinary field

– Browse by title

– Limit search results

– Search the deep web

• There are not enough possibilities to deal with the results

• No access to the indexing of the

databases.

• No access to the algorythm

20 Services Google Thinks Are More Important Than Google Scholar

Why not a federated search?

• Federated search is an information retrieval technology that allows the simultaneous search of multiple searchable resources. A user makes a single query request which is distributed to the search engines participating in the federation.

• Marshall Breeding in 2005, “…shortly after the launch of Google Scholar posits that federated search could not compete the power and speed of a tool like Google Scholar. He proclaims the need for, as he describes it, a “centralized search model”.

• Chickering, F. William and Yang, Sharon Q. (2014). “Evaluation and comparison of discovery tools: an update”. Information technology and libraries, 33(2): 5-30.

What are we looking for?

•A Google-like tool, simple and efficient

•A tool that allows searching as many resources as possible, while allowing limiting the searches to resources accessible to library patrons

•A tool that allows dealing with the list of searches in as many ways as possible

Discovery Tools

What is a discovery tool?

A Central Index

A Discovery Layer

What is a discovery tool?

The Central Index

• The collection of preharvestedand processed metadata and full text that comprises the searchable content of a WSD service: Central indexes typically include full text and citations from publishers; full text and metadata from open source collections; full text, abstracting, and indexing from aggregators and subscription databases; and MARC from library catalogs; also called the base index, unified index, or foundation index.

Evaluating the Central Index

• parameters:– scope of the content,– item types,– inclusion of the full text– richness of the metadata.

• The central index has to fit the library collections on one hand and the type of users of the library on the otherhand.

• Some databases are not included in any WSD (for example: Scifinder)

• Some databases are includedin some WSD and not in others (especially Proquestand Ebsco)

• Even when a WSD vendor does not include a database, it may have basic, citation-level metadata for journal titles by a certain publisher (Elsevier or Springer).

The Discovery Layer

• Single search across the central index

• Fast response time

• Relevancy-ranked results list

• Facets, sort, and other tools for refining and using the results

• Connections to full text via direct links and OpenURL

• End-user accounts and features

Blended resultsBen Gurion University (EDS)

SeparateHaifa University (Primo and Google Scholar or Primo Central)

Catalog Articles

or side by side…Hebrew University (Vufind and EDS)

Discovery Tools Providers

Content Providers Software Providers

• Ex-Libris - Primo Central

• OCLC - World Cat

• EBSCO - EDS

• Proquest - Summon

Open Discovery Initiative:promoting transparency

O.D.I.

• Create ways for libraries to assess the level of content providers’ participation in discovery services

• Help streamline the process by which content providers work with discovery service vendors

• Define models for fair or unbiased linking from discovery services to publishers’ content

• Determine what usage statistics should be collected

NISO, the National Information Standards Organization, a non-profit association accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), is where content publishers, libraries, and software developers turn for information industry standards that allow them to work together. Through NISO, all of these communities are able to collaborate on mutually accepted standards — solutions that enhance their operations today and form a foundation for the future

Thank you for

your attention!

Edith Falk,Chief Librarian

Hebrew University of Jerusalem