1. All Rivers Flow to the Sea:
Integrating Web-Scale Discovery with Existing Systems

2. Solveig* *only at St. Olaf is this a typical student name

3. Solveig is a typical student with typical student research problems:
She has:
Never used an academic library before
A topic that is far too broad to write an 8 page paper on
No idea what kind of supporting materials she needs
Except that her prof told her to use at least 3 “scholarly sources”…what are those?

5. In 2003…

6. In 2008…

7. In 2011…

8. But Always This…

9. How Can we help solveig?

10. Progress! Created the research portal Implemented VuFind
Created instruction and research guides galore
Pulled research databases together by subject area and types of resources covered
All excellent, except…

11. We still had this:

12. Web-Scale Discovery
It was becoming clear that web-scale discovery was the way to go
Our consortium leadership charged a task force with researching the options and making a recommendation: Discovery Tool Task Force 2 (DTTF2)

13. What is Web-Scale Discovery?
Characterized by a large central index that is harvested from content producers that the vendor contracts with
Contrast with federated search
Everything is collected in one index, rather than sending a search out to many different sites
“Google for Libraries”

14. Recommendation from DTTF2
We spent the 2011/12 school year on this project (a presentation in itself…)
We decided to go with Summon:
Largest central index
Best functionality

15. Summon + VuFind

16. VuFind
We implemented VuFind as our catalog overlay in the summer of 2011, and launched it for fall semester
We received a lot of feedback about it
Overall, we were happy with the new search capabilities and working with PALS to design a more flexible and customized catalog

17. Summon
We purchased Summon in the summer of 2012, along with Serials Solutions’ openURL resolver and ERM
DTTF2 researched other implementations of Summon, and asked the implementation group to consider two ideas:

18. Adding catalog records to Summon is usually problematic
To provide a unified search of all our resources, consider a “channeled mash-up” approach

19. Summon API We were fortunate to already be using VuFind
There was an existing driver for VuFind to search Summon via their API
There were also numerous examples of schools using such an approach, particularly Villanova University

20. PALS We were equally fortunate to have a talented developer at PALS
They used the existing open source code and produced a demo mashup version for us in under a week!

21. Implementation
Thanks to PALS quick work, we were able to launch Bridge2 (as we called the new service) on January 1 for the new term at Carleton and St. Olaf

22. Integrating web-scale discovery

23. Mash-up Pros
Single-search starting point is very popular with students. Within the first few weeks we were already hearing positive comments
Catalog results remain visible—it’s easy to tell at a glance what you’ll see in each set…
…or is it?

24. Mash-up Cons Consortial Summon = What goes where?
How do help people understand and manage the results they see?

25. Next Steps Usability studies LibGuide and CONTENTdm integration
Develop database recommender and “Best Bets” features
Create custom search boxes for LibGuides and other sites
VuFind 2.0

26. Most important considerations
Are you and your users ready to use a system that will be constantly evolving (and improving!)?
Are you ready to have your catalog (traditionally the most stable user interface we provide) as part of that system?