Thursday, April 19, 2018

Web-scale discovery tools are the top-notch search engines. Most American academic libraries have deployed one or two web-scale discovery layers by now. Some libraries acquired discovery tools in the hope of boosting dwindling local borrowings. However, evidence from past research did not earmark an increased use of local collections in spite of a usage pattern change after the implementation of a discovery tool. An increase in the use of journal articles and electronic books has been detected, accompanied by a decrease in local print collections. Can we use discovery services to increase local circulation statistics? This presentation describes a project by two librarians to look into how local collections are presented to users in interface design and information retrieval. Only web-scale discovery tools with a unified index are being examined including EBSCO Discovery Service, Primo, Summon, and WorldCat Discovery Services. Up to now, most research on discovery tools focus on usability studies and the impact of discovery tools on reference and library instruction. No research exists on the presentation of local holdings in web-scale discovery tools. So the research discussed in this presentation intends to serve as a starting point to understand more about how discovery services function and could be improved.