NoWAL Sustaining Digitisation Projects

I attended this event at Liverpool University on 27/05/10.

The main themes for the day were engaging with stakeholders, creating and maintaining policies, advocacy, staffing, and preservation.

Converis Demo

Matt Bowell (Research and Graduate College) organised a demo of Converis, a Research Information System. The Research Information System will potentially replace SEEK and help to integrate University functions more effectively, including HR, SIS, Finance and of course USIR.

Lynne and I have written some notes which can be found on the V:Drive at:
V:\ILS\aCustomerServices\UniResearch\Projects\Research Management Systems\Converis Notes.doc

Demo slides are also availale from the same location, document is titled Converis Demo Slides.

Encore Synergy

III have released Encore Synergy which provides access to articles as well as the existing catalogue functionality. It differs from Summon, EDS etc on that it doesn't use a harvested index to provide article results but instead uses web services to dynamically generate the results from the content providers. It also doesn't interfile the article results but presents a small set in the initial results list, with links to more.

Marshall Breeding has given a write up and a few early adopters are already using Encore Synergy including the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Summon @ Huddersfield and Northumbria

Huddersfield and Northumbria are working on a JISC project to do with their implementations of Summon. Yesterday they held a workshop to share their experiences so far - some notes are available here. Interested to see that both institutions seem to be replacing their federated search with Summon - I'd thought you'd still need both.

NOWAL - Cross Search Event

On Friday 14th May - Exlibris, Serial Solutions and Ebsco attended the NOWAL - Cross Search Event. The suppliers were urged to concentrate on what marks their own product as being different from, and better than, the competition.

All suppliers started their presentations with a short overview of the company and then went on to describe current students expectations with regards to learning and research. Generally they want 'Google like' single, quick and easy search interface, with some expectation of enhanced functionality. Below is some of the functionality that the suppliers highlighted.

Exlibris presented first with Primo Central. They focused on how they meet these user expectations with Primo Central by providing

• a single search box that searched all and then consolidated the results
• display order choice
• narrow down easily
• Suggested new searches
• Collaboration tools
• Manage findings on system or via bookmarking tools
  
• BX recommender tool
• Easy integration of Primo Central into other library systems

Addressing some of the libraries issues they also explained:-

• The federated searching element of Primo Central. The same search is carried out in the federated search but the results are not merged with the pre-harvested, although this is being considered.
• Approx 80% of HE material is available via the pre-harvested interface
  
• Primo interface is highly configurable and thus suited to consortia arrangements with different institutions wanting different designs and functionality
• FRBR to merge and deduplicate
• Weighting utility that ensure important material for a particular institution is displayed first
• Can by hosted in house or by Exlibris
• Deals with different langauage scripts
• Admin interface uses wizards to work through configuration and interface setup
• Real time updates from LMS on availability
  

Serials Solutions presented Summon. Focus on how to meet users expectations:-

• Provide a single search interface to everything
• 80% of queries, results in 1 second or less
  
• 6,200 publishers with 570,000,000 items
• Real time call to LMS for location and availability
• syndetics, book covers, abstracts etc
• Narrow down search and ranking
  
• Session based save as well as login save
• Login not required

Addressed library issues:-

• Use Summon for reading lists
• Merge records from different suppliers to provide the best record
• Offered as SAAS
• Client centre available for data administration but no admin interface for configuration or customization at the moment

Final presentation by EBSCO - Discovery Service

User expectations meet:-

• Single Search interface
• Facets to narrow search
• Ranking available
  
• Integrates with LMS and provides book jackets and real time availability data
• Integrates with Link Resolvers from different suppliers but more functionality if you use their own
• Deduplicate and consolidate search results
• Session folder and logged in folder to save results, export and print
• From June 2010 guest access allowed
  

Meet Library expectations:-

• All EBSCO hosted resources and others via pre-harvested
• Non EBSCO hosted resources available as an intergrated federated search (if using EBSCO's federated search tool)
• Can decide which federated search databases are show automatically in pre harvested results based on response times.
• From 2011 much cleaner screen layout
• Can embed search box in web pages
• No deeper integration with LMS at this point only real time availability of items

A very interesting day, providing a good overview of the three products, their similarities and differences.

Anna Langley