Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams LIBRARY DISCOVERY From Ponds to Oceans to Streams Ken Varnum University of | Discovery Tools Now and in the Future 18 November 2014

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams INTRODUCTION

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams Quick Overview About me Defining ‘discovery’ for the talk Agenda Setting the stage Where we are now What are the challenges Where we’re going

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams POLL: Please tell us if you use one a web-scale discovery service in your library: A. EBSCO Discovery Service B. Primo C. Summon D. WorldCat Discovery Service E. Something else F. Nothing

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams SETTING THE STAGE

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams A Brief History Ancient History (the 1980s) Command Lines Experts only Library equivalent of a 900 area code: pay by the minute More recently (1990s) Web interfaces Many databases Despite vendor claims, still experts only Google

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams More Brief History Recent Past (early 2000s) Still more databases! Federated Search Google Google Scholar Today (2010s) Did I mention Google? “Web-Scale Discovery”

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams Illusion of Comprehensiveness There used to be a few online sources for everything that was online Then, there were multiple places to go to find much of what was available online Now, there are a few places to go that have much of everything available…. And many places to go that have small – but oh-so-significant – pieces of what’s online Illusion of being comprehensive has never been greater.

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams A Sea Change In the previous eras of discovery, resources were diffuse in access and concentrated in origin. Web-scale discovery has flipped that. The resources are diffuse in origin and concentrated in access

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams HOW WE THINK ABOUT RESEARCH IS CHANGING

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams No More Silos, Please rm_on_the_Oak_Ridges_Moraine_in_2007.jpg

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams It Was Not That Structured How to characterize the information universe We used to have many sources A few things were in many places Many things were in few places A few flows of information across the infosphere; information owners were proprietary about their data.

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams The Pond Era

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams Where Are We Now? Web-scale discovery – a few concentrated sources for some libraries Still many databases Increasing use of local repositories

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams Oceans of Data

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams MANY CHALLENGES & A FEW SOLUTIONS Or perhaps, directions toward solutions

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams Is Everything Really Everything Lack of transparency throughout Is my package of journals the same as yours? What have I licensed that isn’t available? Flickr user dan_dan

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams Open Discovery Initiative The Open Discovery Initiative (ODI) aims to facilitate progress through exploration of relevant issues and the development of recommended practices for the current generation of library discovery services based on centrally indexed search. The domain of index- based discovery services involves a complex ecosystem of interrelating issues and interests among content providers, libraries, and discovery service creators. NISO Open Discovery Initiative

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams POLL: Before today, I knew about the Open Discovery Initiative: A. A great deal B. Some C. Never heard of it before today

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams Getting to What We Know We Have My colleagues & I looked at link quality (a paper in review by ITAL in the spring). Link resolution – so-so quality (~60% success rate), open Direct Linking – high quality (90+% success rate), closed

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams Designing for Completeness How do we build our search interfaces to accommodate everything? A few interesting approaches out there

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams POLL: My library’s discovery tool integrates local & licensed (non-catalog) content: A. Yes B. No C. I sure wish it did

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams Integrate the Local & the Global The previous examples start down this path What happens when you combine local resources & global resources We see hyperlocal services in other areas; why not libraries?

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams Better Slices of the Whole Sources & formats are the “easy” way to slice the ocean But we could do more…. Especially in academia We [can] know a lot about our users Rich local sources of context Course enrollments Course syllabi Professors “Salted” starting points

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams Ways to Draw from the Ocean Courses Years of study Language preference Academic standing Closely tied to institution

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams Streams Well-filtered searches make good current awareness tools Libraries should be asking discovery vendors for: Need to offer variable scope filters Flexible, locally customizable Filtered views should not be default view for novice users

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams Concluding Thoughts Discovery environments still emerging What we do with them is all important Environment is ripe for innovation

Ken Library Discovery: From Ponds to Oceans to Streams Thanks Slides available at © 2014 Ken Varnum