Discovery Tool Implementation: EDS @ UGA

1. Discovery Tool Implementation: EDS @ UGA Bill Clayton Assistant University Librarian for Systems University of Georgia Libraries GUGM, Macon State, May 19, 2011

2. Background – Student Need • Difficulty determining the appropriate resource for their information needs • Confused by too many choices / silos of information (300+ online databases) • Desire for a single search box • General multi-disciplinary databases (like Academic Search Complete) work well for certain undergraduate topics but are too limited for others • Library staff have no interaction with the majority of students doing research • Encounter students who spend 4 years relying on a single database they used as a freshman GUGM, Macon State, May 19, 2011

3. Our Goal – enable our users to do one search that gets results from our catalog, our article databases, and our online full-text resourcesPrimary Target Audience • Undergraduates & less experienced graduate students • Graduate students & faculty doing interdisciplinary research • Anyone starting a new research project GUGM, Macon State, May 19, 2011

4. Federated Searching • Too many limitations • Too slow • Too limited in display & navigation capabilities • Brainstorming session on the problems of federated searching at 2007 CODE4LIB Conference GUGM, Macon State, May 19, 2011

5. Central Index discovery tools • Several are now available • The central index model ? • Distinguished from a federated search of disparate databases • Local data added to a large index of licensed data • Hosted solution by definition ? • Index architecture ?? • Campus reaction to the concept • In discussions with University Administration, Central Computing, Law Library, and other University faculty • In Student Tech Fee funding request process GUGM, Macon State, May 19, 2011

6. Trial of EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) • Why EDS? • Opportunity at the right time • Long serial subscription relationship • License a lot of our electronic data through EBSCO • Beta partnership • Good process • Lots of opportunities for feedback • Very positive evolution of the product • Made EDS available to our students in early November GUGM, Macon State, May 19, 2011

7. Tool strengths • Effectively retrieves results from a broad range of our resources in a single search • Searches & displays results pretty quickly • All matches are returned & accessible • De-duping the result set is pretty effective (not perfect) • Relevancy ranking algorithms are being refined to deal with the mixture of sources & the large result sets (critical) • Online full-text availability & access is generally clear & straightforward GUGM, Macon State, May 19, 2011

8. Tool strengths (cont) • Facets or clusters enable user to refine their search (narrow result set) • Lot of flexibility & customization capabilities can be controlled in your Administrative interface • Location & item status info can be dynamically pulled from our OPAC for display in the discovery result list • Guest access allows visitors to search & see a fairly complete result list (login is required to access complete information or full text for licensed content) GUGM, Macon State, May 19, 2011

9. Tool challenges • All matches from the included resources are returned & accessible • Data inconsistencies across this broad range of resources will produce some issues • Result sets include a mixture of source types that has not been common • Subject or topic facets tend to be too broad to be particularly useful (& too source specific) • Discovery tools add to the search interface options without initially replacing anything (can add to confusion) GUGM, Macon State, May 19, 2011

10. Brief Demo or Screenshots GUGM, Macon State, May 19, 2011

11. Bill Clayton email to wclayton@uga.edu Questions? GUGM, Macon State, May 19, 2011