NISO Webinar: Keyword Search = "Improve Discovery Systems"

transcript

NISO Webinar: Keyword Search =

"Improve Discovery Systems"

November 12, 2014Speakers:

John McDonald, Associate Dean, Collections, University of Southern California LibrariesJason Price, Program Manager, Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium

(SCELC)

Steve Guttman, Senior Director of Product Management, ProQuest

Marshall Breeding, Library Consultant, librarytechnology.org

http://www.niso.org/news/events/2014/webinars/improve_discovery/

Differential Discovery: The Effect of Discovery

Services on Journal Usage

NISO WebinarNovember 12, 2014

Michael Levine-Clark, University of DenverJohn McDonald, University of Southern California

Jason Price, SCELC Consortium

…our customers insist that usage of our content decreased after implementation of discovery service “X”.

A publisher told us . . .

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kongping/7192138660/in/gallery-flickr-72157645846953449/

Librarians speculate . . .…of course discovery vendors direct their users to their own aggregated content.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hypotekyfidler/15012731920

Goals of our research

• Determine whether discovery services impact usage

• Help librarians and publishers understand how their choices impact use

• Help librarians, publishers, and vendors improve the discovery experience for end users

What did we measure?

• Whether there is an effect

• NOT why that effect exists

Caveat 1: Publisher-hosted journals are only part of the picture

eBooks, pBooks, newspaper articles, aggregator journal content, etc.

publisher journal content

The six publishers in this study

Not to scale!

Caveat 2: More usage may not be better!

• Decreased usage might be a sign of greater efficiency– Relevant articles found faster = fewer articles to examine

OR– Fewer articles examined because other relevant content

types found

Does implementation of a discovery service impact usage of publisher-

hosted journal content?

Did Journal Usage Change? (and if so, to what extent?)

• 4 discovery services– 6 libraries in each group

• A control group– 9 libraries that did not implement a discovery

service in this time period• 6 major journal publishers

– 9,206 Journals in the study– 163,545 Observations (Library + Journal)

Participating libraries• 157 asked for permission, 155 granted permission

– 124 from the US, 33 from other English-speaking countries• Has your library used a different discovery service in

the past?– Only libraries answering “No” were selected

• Is your discovery service featured on your homepage?– All participants answered, “Yes, with a search box”

• To what extent did your library market the discovery service at its release?– 4 said “None”, one from each vendor– 12 said “A limited extent”, 2 WCL, 2 EDS, 4 Summon, 4 Primo– 8 said “A significant extent, 4 WCL, 2 EDS, 1 Summon, 1

Methodology

Compared COUNTER JR1 total full text article views for the

12 months before vs 12 months after implementation date

Year 1 Year 2

Included implementation month in Year 1 to ensure that both periods included an entire academic year

Journals by Library & Service

EDS Primo Summon WorldCat Control

Average Journal Usage by Library

Testable Effects

• Discovery Service– Implemented by multiple libraries– Used to find content from all publishers

• Publisher– Accessible in all discovery services– Accessible across all libraries

• Library– Uses content from multiple publishers– Uses only one discovery service

Nested ANOVA Model Results

How does usage change differ across discovery services?

Letters indicate statistically significant differences (Tukey multiple comparisons, p < .05)

Does usage change vary across libraries?

Institution (sorted by Mean Change)

Does usage change differ across libraries within discovery services?

How does usage change differ across publishers?

Summary of Results• Discovery Service

– Every service increased usage compared to control – Some services increased usage more than others

• Library– The degree of usage change differed among libraries

using the same discovery service• Publisher

– Usage change differed across publishers:• 1 of 6 publishers saw a significant decrease• 2 of 6 publishers saw significant increases• 3 of 6 publishers saw no detectable change

Conclusions to be avoided…

Our research does not indicate that:a) one service increases usage more than another for

every library or publisher effects vary across libraries and publishers

b) one service is better than another libraries or their users may benefit from increased usage of

other content instead higher usage may indicate lower efficiency

Next Steps• Design & test for effects of:

–Aggregator full text availability–Linking configuration options in discovery services

• Expand pool of libraries• Explore the why?• Other possibilities

–Journal Subject?–Journal age (archive vs current)?–eBook usage?

1. What is the best service: Summon, Primo, EDS or Worldcat? • Our research can’t prove one is better than another, and

usage is only one reason to install a discovery system

2. Why was there so much variation in the effect of implementation across publishers at my institution? Why did some increase and some decrease?

Potential Librarian Concerns (1)

3. What about configuration differences?• This undoubtedly contributes to some variance, so be

careful to review and maintain your configurations and preferences.

4. What about other resource types (ebooks, print books, etc)? • They may be affected, we haven’t studied these.

5. Was it missing metadata that caused the differences?• Maybe, we can’t know for sure, so the publishers and

vendors need to come up with best practices for metadata exchange to ensure everyone is on an equal playing field (encourage participation in NISO ODI)

Potential Librarian Concerns (2)

Potential Publisher Issues (1)1. Are users being directed to Aggregated full text

before publisher hosted full text? • Maybe, but it might be the Library’s configuration that is to

blame.• This could be counterproductive for aggregators.

2. Does implementation of abstract-based discovery reduce the ranking of publisher content that is not indexed (or available full text) in a library’s aggregator databases?• Maybe, but it its up to the Library to decide if that is a

desired effect or not.

Potential Publisher Issues (2)3. Why was there so much variation in the effect of

implementation on change in usage of our content across institutions using the same discovery service? • Because usage can affect the publisher bottom line, this is a

key question. Some publishers are finding it of value to invest in research and engagement of customers at the extremities of change after implementation.

4. How can publishers know what is being done with the metadata they send? • Discovery vendors need to be more proactive in proving

the positive benefits of providing more robust metadata

1. How do we prove we’re content neutral?• Develop best practices that indicate to libraries their

configuration and linking choices.• Allow for independent studies• Make the case for the risks related to bias?

2. Our systems make other resource types (ebooks, print books, etc) more discoverable, does anyone value that? • More research needs to be done to assess effectiveness for

NISO Webinar: Keyword Search = "Improve Discovery Systems"

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