Document Type

Monograph

Publication Date

2011

Publication Title

Information Technology and Libraries

Publisher

American Library Association

Abstract

Web scale discovery services for libraries provide deep discovery to a library’s local and licensed content, and represent an evolution, perhaps a revolution, for end user information discovery as pertains to library collections. This article frames the topic of Web scale discovery, and begins by illuminating Web scale discovery from an academic library’s perspective – that is, the internal perspective seeking widespread staff participation in the discovery conversation. This included the creation of a Discovery Task Force, a group which educated library staff, conducted internal staff surveys, and gathered observations from early adopters. The article next addresses the substantial research conducted with library vendors which have developed these services. Such work included drafting of multiple comprehensive question lists distributed to the vendors, onsite vendor visits, and continual tracking of service enhancements. Together, feedback gained from library staff, insights arrived at by the Discovery Task Force, and information gathered from vendors collectively informed the recommendation of a service for the UNLV Libraries.

Keywords

Academic libraries; Automation; Discovery; Evaluation; Information retrieval; Information storage and retrieval systems; Online library catalogs – Evaluation; Survey; Web scale discovery

Disciplines

Data Storage Systems | Digital Communications and Networking | Library and Information Science | Other Education

Language

English

Comments

Preprint

Publisher Citation

Vaughan, J. (in press). Investigations into library web-scale discovery services. Information Technology and Libraries. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/lita/ital/prepub/vaughan2011.pdf

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