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Transparency in Discovery:
Marshall Breedinghttp://www.librarytechnology.org/http://twitter.com/mbreeding
April 7, 2014
Issues and progress in the ecosystem of
Index-based Discovery
Description
• Breeding, co-chair of the NISO Open Discovery Initiative, describes the general landscape of library resource discovery products, the trend toward web-scale, index-based services, and some of the issues that sparked this initiative to bring increased transparency and other improvements to the ecosystem involving libraries, content providers, and discovery service creators.
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Online Catalog
• Books, Journals, and Media at the Title Level
• Not in scope:– Articles– Book Chapters– Digital objects
Scope of SearchSearch:
Search Results
ILS Data
Index-based Discovery
Search:
Digital Collections
Web Site Content
Institutional
Repositories
…E-Journals
Reference Sources
Search Results
Pre-built harvesting and indexing
Consolidated Index
ILS Data
Aggregated Content packages
(2009- present)
Usage-generate
dData
Customer
Profile
Open Access
Discovery Service Installations
Product 2007 2008 2009 20102011 2012 2013Installe
d
EBSCO EDS 1774 5612
Primo 12 37 53 506 111 101 98 1407
AquaBrowser 55 339 64 69 74 58 81 750
Encore 72 72 109 56 72 36 346
LS2 PAC 46 77 58 88 73 81 382
Summon 50 164 214 158 238 673
Enterprise 16 75 100 102 123 407
Civica Sorcer 7 12 22 3 42
Axiell Arena 61 57 33 35 316
Chamo 10 34 7 23 36 128
Discovery Concerns
• Important space for libraries and publishers
• Discovery brings value to library collections
• Discovery brings uncertainty to publishers
• Uneven participation diminishes impact
• Ecosystem dominated by private agreements
• Complexity and uncertainty poses barriers for participation
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Heterogeneous Representations• Content objects represented by
– MARC Records for books and journal titles
– Citation data for articles– Full text for articles– Full text for books– Abstracts and Indexing data
• Controlled vocabularies, related terms, abstracts, selected index terms produced by subject experts
– Other metadata or enrichment
Discovery index issues
• Indexing full-text enables keyword-based relevancy
• Citations or structured metadata provide basic terms to support search & retrieval and faceted navigation
• A&I terms provide access points, relevancy indicators that cannot be reproduced algorithmically
• Important to understand what is indexed– Currency, dates covered, full-text or citation– Many other factors
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Library Perspective
• Strategic investments in subscriptions• Strategic investments in Discovery Solutions to
provide access to their collections• Expect comprehensive representation of resources
in discovery indexes– Problem with access to resources not represented in
index– Encourage all publishers to participate and to lower
thresholds of technical involvement and clarify the business rules associated with involvement
• Need to be able to evaluate the coverage and performance of competing index-based discovery products
Collection Coverage?
• To work effectively, discovery services need to cover comprehensively and evenly the body of content represented in library collections
• What primary publishers participate?• What secondary or A&I publishers
participate?• Is content indexed at the citation or full-
text level?• What are the restrictions for non-
authenticated users?• How can libraries understand the
differences in coverage among competing services?
Web-scale search problem
Search:
Search Results
Pre-built harvesting and
indexing
Consolidated
Index
???
Non Participating
Content Sources
Problem in how to deal with resources not provided to ingest into consolidated index
Digital Collections
Web Site Content
Institutional Repositories
…E-Journals
ILS Data
Aggregated Content packages
Representation of A&I
• Important to understand how a discovery service incorporates A&I resources– Does it receive content from the A&I
provider directly and make use of value-added terminology
– If not: citations or full-text indexing of some portion of the titles represented in the A&I product
– NOT the same, and possibly misleading12
Evaluating the Coverage of Index-based Discovery Services
• Intense competition: how well the index covers the body of scholarly content stands as a key differentiator
• Difficult to evaluate based on numbers of items indexed alone.
• Important to ascertain how your library’s content packages are represented by the discovery service.
• Important to know what items are indexed by citation, which are full text, and how A&I content is handled
Some Key Areas for Publishers1. Expose content appropriately2. Trust that access to material will be
controlled consistent with subscription terms
3. “Fair” Linking4. Materials not disadvantaged or
underrepresented in library discovery implementations
5. Usage reporting
Library Technology Reports• The Current State of Library Resource
Discovery Products: Context, Library Perspectives, and Vendor Positions
• In press for Publication January 2014
LTR Components
• Vender questionnaire• Library Survey• Industry announcements• Other articles and publications
Library Discovery Survey
Academic 247
Consortium 15Government Agency
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Law 7Medical 5Museum 1National 1Other 1Public 96Special 14State 4Theology 3
• Survey executed to gather data from libraries regarding their experiences with discovery services
• Responses received by 396 Libraries:
• 29 Countries represented, 252 responses from United States
Facilitate a healthy ecosystem among
discovery service providers, libraries and content
providers
ODI context
ODI Pre-History
• June 26, 2011: Exploratory meeting @ ALA Annual
• July 2011: NISO expresses interest• Aug 7, 2011: Proposal drafted by
participants submitted to NISO• Aug 2011: Proposal accepted by D2D• Vote of approval by NISO
membership• Oct 2011: ODI launched• Feb 2012: ODI Workgroup Formed
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Organization
• Reports in NISO through Document to Delivery topic committee (D2D)
• Staff support from NISO through Nettie Lagace
• Co-Chairs– Jenny Walker (Ex Libris)– Marshall Breeding (Library Consultant)
• D2D Observers: Jeff Penka (OCLC)Lucy Harrison (CCLA)
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ODI Timeline
MilestoneTarget Date
Status
Appointment of working group Dec 2011
Approval of charge and initial work plan Mar 2012
Agreement on process and tools Jun 2012
Completion of information gathering Jan 2013
Completion of initial draft Jun 2013
Completion of final draft Sep 2013
Public comment Nov 2013
Revision and Approval Apr 201428
Balance of Constituents
Libraries
Publishers
Service Providers
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Marshall Breeding, Vanderbilt UniversityJamene Brooks-Kieffer, Kansas State University Laura Morse, Harvard UniversityKen Varnum, University of Michigan
Sara Brownmiller, University of Oregon
Lucy Harrison, College Center for Library Automation (D2D liaison/observer)Michele Newberry
Lettie Conrad, SAGE PublicationsRoger Schonfeld, ITHAKA/JSTOR/PorticoJeff Lang, Thomson Reuters
Linda Beebe, American Psychological AssocAaron Wood, Alexander Street Press
Jenny Walker, Ex Libris GroupJohn Law, Serials SolutionsMichael Gorrell, EBSCO Information ServicesDavid Lindahl, University of Rochester (XC)
Jeff Penka, OCLC (D2D liaison/observer)
ODI Project Goals:
• Identify … needs and requirements of the three stakeholder groups in this area of work.
• Create recommendations and tools to streamline the process by which information providers, discovery service providers, and librarians work together to better serve libraries and their users.
• Provide effective means for librarians to assess the level of participation by information providers in discovery services, to evaluate the breadth and depth of content indexed and the degree to which this content is made available to the user.
Specific deliverables
• Standard vocabulary• NISO Recommended Practice:
– Data format & transfer– Communicating content rights– Levels of indexing, content availability– Linking to content– Usage statistics– Evaluate compliance
• Inform and Promote Adoption31
ODI Stakeholder Survey
• Collected data from Sept 11 thru Oct 4, 2012
• Each subgroup developed questions pertinent to it area of concern
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Selected results
• Libraries: do you use a discovery service?– Yes: 74%, Planning to soon: 17%, No:
5%, Don’t know: 4%• Smallest discoverable unit:
– Component title: 9%, Article: 25%, Collective work record: 11%, All the above: 50%
• Linking from A&I entry: 75 prefer linking to full text on original publisher’s server
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Content providers (74)
• Contribute data: Yes-All: 44%, Some: 48%, No: 8%– Current data: 12%, Current + back files:
85• Barriers to contributing:
– IP concerns, technology, staff resources• Challenges in delivery:
– Complicated formats: 15%, transmission of data: 18, allocation of personnel: 23%, can’t automate: 12%, None: 20%
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Issues surrounding A&I resources• Concern that A&I resources not be
freely available to non authenticated users and only for subscribing institutions
• How to “credit” A&I data that contributes to search results– Example: Index entry produced by
enhancing full-text with A&I data• Preservation of the value added by
A&I in the discovery ecosystem35
Report Topics
• Introduction– In scope / out of scope– Terms and definitions
• Evolution of Discovery– Related initiatives
• Recommendations
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General Recommendations• Create oversight group• Conformance checklist for:
– Discovery Service Providers– Content Providers
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Recommendations for Content Providers• Content providers should make items
available to discovery service providers. – Basic: Citations: specific metadata
elements– Enhanced: additional metadata + Full-
text• Provide to Libraries: disclosure of
participation in discovery services
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Recommendations for Discovery Service Creators• Disclosure of content indexed
– Specific metadata fields• Fair / non-biased linking
– Mechanisms for libraries to choose versions preferred for linking
– Annual statement regarding neutrality of linking or relevance
– Provide links to A&I services when applicable• Usage statistics to Publishers
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Current work Next Steps
• Finalize document based on comments from ODI members
• Submit for final approval by NISO D2D
• Hopefully finished by the end of April 2014
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Connect with ODI
• ODI Project website:http://www.niso.org/workrooms/odi/
• Interest group mailing list:http://www.niso.org/lists/opendiscovery/
• Email ODI:[email protected]
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Discovery Service Trends
• Progress in cooperation between content providers and discovery– ProQuest announces deals with OCLC
and Ex Libris• Technical development of discovery
services continues– Improved methods for relevancy and
tools for exploring library resources• Convergence of Discovery with new
Library Services Platforms43
Convergence
• Discovery and Management solutions will increasingly be implemented as matched sets– Ex Libris: Primo / Alma– Serials Solutions: Summon / Intota– OCLC: WorldCat Local / WorldShare Platform– Except: Kuali OLE, EBSCO Discovery Service
• Both depend on an ecosystem of interrelated knowledge bases
• API’s exposed to mix and match, but efficiencies and synergies are lost
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