Encouraging Discovery by Blogging Reference Questions Jim Gerencser SAA 2010

The Question In an online, search engine based environment, why should one researcher not benefit from the resource discoveries of another researcher in a timely fashion?

The Concept – Part I Create a quick and simple blog post describing the reference transaction that is publicly accessible and is discoverable by future users who may be researching similar topics.

The Concept – Part II Record useful information about the researcher and reference transaction that is accessible ONLY to the staff of the Archives for the purposes of maintaining user data, service data, and user/usage statistics.

Requirements Need basic blog functionalities (i.e. tagging, commenting, etc.). Need both a public side and private side. Need data to be easily “harvestable”. Need public side to be readily “crawlable”. Need a flexible system that can grow and evolve without breaking. Need something simple to operate. Need something inexpensive to maintain.

Drupal: Open source software chosen for the project.

To create a post, enter the title, date, tags, and text.

Next, add contact information for the researcher.

Next, use drop-downs to describe the transaction.

Finally, note the resources used for this question.

Reference Blog -

Proof of Concept Who is Alois Swoboda? Where is the Rickover Report?

Researchers may search all previous blog posts.

Researchers may use tags to find similar materials.

Researchers may leave helpful comments for others.

Link to your finding aids.

Link to your other websites.

Link to resources in your content management tools.

Link out to resources in “the cloud.”

Statistics are generated automatically.

Gather whatever is useful for you to know.

A Statistical Snapshot 73% of requests are received via 26% of researchers are pursuing family history 21% of researchers are professional scholars 29% of researchers find us through search engines or other online resources 41% of researches found our finding aids, among 30% who mentioned their source 175 hours of staff time has been spent serving off-site researchers

The Outcomes We have improved internal processes. We have improved discoverability. We know more about our offsite users. We know what resources are being used. We know how users are finding us. We save time on repeat questions. We save time on repeat researchers. We can better plan for future needs.

Summing Up Drupal is flexible and customizable. Reference transactions are discoverable. Reference transactions are searchable. Reference transactions are taggable. Reference transactions are linkable. Researchers can post helpful comments. Reference statistics are easily obtainable.

Future Possibilities? IDIA: “Iterative Digital Interactive Archive” Digitize-on-demand documents are preserved in a sustainable online repository. Digitized documents are linked to blog posts. Digitized documents are linked to finding aids. Finding aids can be updated quickly and easily. Researchers can transcribe digitized documents. Researcher input can be added to descriptions.

Contact for Questions Jim Gerencser Dickinson College Archives