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Accessibility of Scholarly Resources How users approach academic research and the implications for content providers ________ Sue Maniloff ProQuest Alliance Manager, Global Content [email protected] ASIDIC Spring 2009 Primary Research • Observational research of student researchers • 70+ sessions across 8 universities and 2 continents More Primary Research • Online focus groups with end-user researchers • 9 groups, 80 participants (multiple demographics) More Primary Research • Surveys of end-user researchers • 10,463 respondents across diverse demographics More Primary Research • Focus group sessions with librarians • 7 groups, 47 librarians Research Indicates The superior source for quality, credible content Preferred for academic research and course assignments Actual User Behavior The easiest place to start the research process Chief Inhibitors to Success No clear and compelling starting place Difficulty identifying appropriate resources General lack of awareness of resources The typical university library has… • Hundreds of databases • Tens of thousands of journals • Millions of books Library experience is confusing, clumsy and slow Where should I begin? Convenience scores over content • Simple • Easy • Fast Google/Google Scholar as “research tools” “Too many results from a Google search and the need to sort through them” and “Figuring out what is a credible source, and what is not” Project Information Literacy Report: What Today’s College Students Say about Conducting Research in the Digital Age, February 9, 2009, www.projectinfolit.org Librarians Focus Group Sessions “People know we are losing ground to what's out there in terms of research. Libraries are trying to figure out ways to reach out to users. “There is a need for the most simplest of Rather than having students use Google, we interfaces to provide to the customer while need to make libraries the best, first choice to simultaneously giving the customer a rich do research forare anything.” “We still in nota user-friendly information store Google type enough. Our Librarian users … expectations are that when they type environment.” something in they will get results—they Librarian are used to Google. We need to provide information as well as Google can.” Librarian Simplified Access to Library Content More than a convenience, a requirement • Critical to preserving library's role in research • Critical to the efficacy of research • Critical to preserving revenues to content providers Quantitative Online Surveys Indicate What users want in library search tools • More than 7 of 10 researchers would prefer to use a search tool that provided: • More credible search results than Google • Better ways to narrow results for scholarly research • Limit results to full-text resources available through their library • Comprehensive representation of the full breadth of the library’s resources Quantitative Online Surveys Also Indicate What users expect from any search tool • Speed • Interface Simplicity • Highly relevant search results from full complement of disparate sources • Seamless access to content (full text) Unified Discovery Service • • Enables quick discovery of the most credible resources anywhere the library has them • Fast, easy, single result set • Digital or physical resource • Books, e-journal articles, databases, etc. • Catalog, publishers, aggregators, open access, etc. Points users to most pertinent content and links them to the more sophisticated research tools "I have seen the future of how libraries will provide access to information, resources, and collections. It's called "Summon" by Serial Solutions and it can become equally important as Google in everyone's everyday information seeking and use.” "I have seen the future of how libraries will provide access to information, resources, and collections. It's called "Summon" by Serial Solutions and it can become equally important as Google in everyone's everyday information seeking and use.” Mike Eisenberg Dean Emeritus & Professor University of Washington Information School Mike Eisenberg Dean Emeritus & Professor University of Washington Information School Screen shots Screen shots Simplified Illustration The Summon Service has Content Provider Support Gale and ProQuest are leading the way • Demonstrating their stewardship of libraries and commitment to securing the role of libraries in the research process. Broad Support for the Summon™ Service • Some of the world’s largest publishers • Springer, Taylor & Francis, SAGE Publications • CrossRef • Provides DOIs for superior linking • Highwire Press • Crawling and harvesting access Examples of Extensive Content Support • Additional prestigious publishers include: Nature Publishing Group Maney Oxford University Press Kluwer Law International Cambridge University Press Walter de Gruyter Johns Hopkins University Press (Project Muse) Thieme Proceedings of the Nat’l Academy of Sciences Landes Bioscience Academy of Sciences Future Science Group Houghton Mifflin Lavoisier Klett-Cotta Museum Tuscalanum Press Emerald EDP Sciences Examples of Extensive Content Support • Society publishers • ACM, The Institute of Physics, AMA, American Institute of Physics, Optical Society of America, American Economic Society • Open access content • Directory of Open Access Journals, Hindawi Publishing Corporation, and arXiv e-prints • Major authoritative bibliographic databases • Econlit, Sociological Abstracts • Government and NGO databases • GPO, Medline, ERIC, Agricola, PILOTS, TOXLINE, and OECD Additional publishers since public announcement Alexander Street Press Infobase Facts on File American Accounting Association Incisive American Association of Physicists in Medicine International Centre for Diffraction Data American Association of Physics Teachers Computer Society American Astronomy Society The Institution of Engineering and Technology AHS International - The Vertical Flight Society The Institute of Noise Control Engineering American Industrial Hygiene Association IS&T - The Society for Imaging Science & Technology The American Physical Society Laser Institute of America Acoustical Society of America MAIK Nauka/Interperiodica * Russian Academy of Sciences American Society of Civil Engineers National Institute of Standards and Technology American Society of Mechanical Engineers International Physics Essays Publication AVS: Science & Technology of Materials, Interfaces, and Processing SkillSoft Books 24x7 EDP Sciences SIAM: Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics The Electrochemical Society The Society for Information Display Emerald The Society of Rheology Environmental & Engineering Geophysical Society SPIE Earthquake Engineering Research Institute The Tire Society Human Frontier Science Program The Society of Exploration Geophysicists More Content Support • Hundreds of providers supplying content so far • 50,000+ journal and periodical titles • 400+ million items indexed currently • Publishers and other content providers joining the Summon service weekly What are content providers to do? “How Readers Navigate to Scholarly Content” Simon Inger and Tracy Gardner (Sept 2008) • A key measure of publisher success is the usage which can be maximized by enabling all the routes to its content … Library technology plays a key role in user navigation • Publishers need to support all conceivable routes to their content … through the open distribution of XML metadata catalogues, collaboration with library technology vendors and through working with major gateways and search engines. The Summon Unified Discovery Service • A new unified discovery service developed to help solve a problem for libraries, content providers and academic researchers • Provides a Google-like search for the library • Enables simple, easy and fast discoverability of authoritative content • Increases content usage – a key measure of success • Helps boost renewal rates