©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. eResource Management: Challenges & Solutions Mark Schregardus Vice-President, International Sales Ovid Technologies

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. Agenda eResource Management challenges How did it all get so complicated so quickly? A challenging position for: IP’s Librarians and Administrators End-users Tools to assist in eResource Management Federated searching OpenURL LinkResolvers Ovid’s platform for eResource Management Developed with consortia in mind! Discussion

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. E-resources: current situation Bibliographic databases: many, all with descriptive names (Inspec, Cinahl, etc) Electronic journals: Subscribed & current Subscribed with embargoe Free “Open Access” journals -Current or embargoed Individual titles Packages: some current, some embargoed, some archive Electronic books

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. E-resources: current situation Library Catalog (OPAC) Dissertation & Theses databases Image databases Research portals Web sites with relevant (quality?) information Institutional Repositories Digital Archives =>Many different platforms, interfaces, search engines

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. Your Challenges How do I maximize the value of my investment in content resources? How do I make sure users select & search the appropriate resources, in the best possible way How do I provide seamless links & interconnect all available resources…. …and how do I manage/administrate all this in a cost-effective manner???

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. How did it all get so complicated? ? ?

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. In the beginning..… Aggregator (Dark Ages): Select a database Perform a search Retrieve results Visit the library Find the journal, Make a copy Aggregator (Yesterday): Select multiple databases Perform a search across dbs Deduplicate results Link to full text; or Visit the library for print copy; or Link to ILL or Doc Ordering system

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. Today’s Information Provider One of many in the library Must link bi-directionally – out to full text, in from other sources Competes with free search engines, free full text, free web sites Competes with publishers’ web sites and aggregated full text service providers Co-exists with search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN Search

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. Librarians’ Dilemma: Purchasing Librarians purchase resources based on: Price User Interface – one UI is always better than two Price Vendor reputation & Services Price Integration with other library resources Price Ease of use for patrons – trainability And of course, PRICE!

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. Librarians’ Dilemma: Training Getting users excited about structured searching What’s the big deal about Boolean logic Controlled Vocabularies Index Browsing Fielded searching How do you even get their attention when there’s an easier way (Google) Helping Users Find Relevant Information:

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. Googlemania Who needs structured searching? Abundant results, relevance ranked It’s FREE!

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. Googlemania: On the Down Side Relevance ranking is Google’s “secret” Can you be sure you about comprehensiveness They’re NOT citations You can’t do much with results Limit Refine by subject Combine results Sort results Too many results: “Engineers and scientists are loosing faith in the Open Web and increasing reliance on peer to peer information seeking” (Outsell STM Report, Sept. 2005)

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. Google’s Answer… Google Scholar! It’s a beta, so they’re getting away with ambiguity Controlled sources: only peer reviewed materials as submitted by primary publishers Ranking is based on: availability of full text, publication and number of citations It is not going away in the foreseeable future

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. Google Scholar: the downside Poor searching of Author and Title Data that requires normalization and post processing No indexing and taxonomies – value add of A/I db’s Very poor disclosure of what is included/excluded Serious (and unknown) content gaps:smaller publishers, archives (finds only 12% of all Blackwell articles, 45% of HW journals, etc) “Content is the most obscure part of Google Scholar. Apart from the generic statement on the About page (…) there is no specific information about the publisher archives or the (p)reprint servers covered, nor about the type of documents processed (…) or the time span covered. Just because a service is free doesn't mean that the producer is not expected to disclose substantial information about the content”. Peter Jasco, Review of GS Beta, November 2004 Bottom line: GS is not seen as a viable replacement for structured searching in applications that offer rich syntax, search tools like limiting, filtering, sorting, deduplication, alerting, and subject searching, sponsored by structured human indexing

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. So Far: A Choice Between One massive database Ease of use and always results (many!) Ranking No unified indexing No coverage for small and local language publishers Patchy coverage of certain academic areas Poor searching for expert searchers Too much noise? Many bibliographic sources Authentication and Training Issues for Administrators Specialised indexing and advanced search options Less “end” user friendly Quality control of content, source disclosure Better searching results but more effort upfront

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. Ovid’s perspective eResource Management & the role of Federated Searching and Link Resolver products for academic institutions and Consortia

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. Federated Searching & Link Resolvers Not new, but have traditionally been: Expensive Difficult to implement Inflexible Only for selected few Provided by ILS vendors Not designed with consortia in mind Pricing models Lack of self-administration possibilities Authentication support Customization options

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. Ovid’s approach to Federated Searching: SearchSolver Developed with leader in core federated search technology Modern technology Supports wide range of search protocols No limits on simultaneously searching of targets Local language searching ASP model: Online hosting no technology hassles Benefit from scale (price!) Focus on extremely fast deployment Large existing collection of database connectors Customization and Branding options Easy administration One platform to allow resource integration with workflow tools (distance learning, HIS, etc) through a single API Designed with Consortia Customers in Mind

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. What Metasearching CAN Do Allows the Information Professional to Design a ‘portal’ into the library’s resources; Organize the presentation of specific information sources for focused group or subject area (Biotech, Social Sciences, Engineering, etc); Expand the discovery process through data sampling; Educate users in the presence of scholarly search tools and allow access to specialised interface tools Help users properly scope a search

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. Metasearch… NOT Cannot mine the native databases’ rich search tools Deduplication - risk removing important citation information from native search UI

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. A Simple View of the Architecture Ovid SearchSolver Sources ID/PW, IP etcID/PW, or ID/PW & IP Connectors (search syntax)

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. Organize Resources under One Roof – fully under Librarian’s Control

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. Results – A Database

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. Results – Full Text

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. Results – A Web Page

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. In a Nutshell… Metasearch provides a solid solution for the librarian to control information flow to users and convey the value of using a variety of search sources for discovery. A common interface for returning sampling of results from many sources A pathway to the native search application for precision search tools.

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. Ovid’s approach to OpenURL Linking: LinkSolver ASP model: Online hosting no technology hassles Benefit from scale (price!) Fast and Easy deployment: upgrade from free product One-click access to all full text resources from Ovid databases/journals/books, rather than a “landing page” first. Limit to ALL available full text available from Ovid resources “Links Packages”: automatic linking from Ovid resources to all Open Access journals Easy administration Customization and Branding options Embargoe support Global Import / Export function Designed with Consortia Customers in Mind

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. Ovid’s View of eResource Management Embrace Federated Search as a Discovery Tool Don’t give up Native Search Engine precision searching, advanced tools Invest in an OpenURL Linking Solution to centralize administration of: electronic holdings print holdings document delivery / inter-library Loan targeted internet resources

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. Ovid’s Platform for eResource Management ? ? *Logos Owned by Respective Companies Discovery SearchSeamless LinkingFull Text

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. Designed with Consortia in mind Pricing is based on the required solution for the consortia, NOT the number of sites, etc: Number of database connectors Customization of interface(s) and branding Allows for complex account structures and authentication schemes Administration and customization at different levels (consortia, sub-consortia, institution, department): control in the hands of the customer High-level support services from specialized sales engineers

©2004 Wolters Kluwer Health. All Rights Reserved. Discussion Value of A/I databases? Google (Scholar)? Federated Searching OpenURL LinkResolvers Ovid’s approach to e-Resource Management? Pricing models and implementation services?