All Sessions

The greatest challenge for discovery systems is providing users with the most relevant search results out of the immense landscape of content. Similar to human interaction between two parties, where people adjust in tone, language, and subject matter, discovery systems need to “understand” the user’s context as well as the materials’ scholarly value. The session will describe Ex Libris Primo’s approach to relevance ranking. In addition to employing traditional information-retrieval methods that have been adapted to scholarly data, ScholarRank takes into account the intrinsic academic value of materials along with information about the user and the user’s research needs.

In an overwhelmingly competitive information landscape, the library is forced to find creative ways to showcase its value and prove its relevancy within its user community. Now, the library can reach users wherever they are on the web. This session will introduce the new suite of services based on bX technology, including Hot Articles for your subject, use analytics and data-mining of raw usage data to enrich and expand the researcher’s discovery experience.

A new era of discovery systems commenced in 2008 with the release of services such as Summon (Serials Solutions), EBSCO Discovery Service, Primo Central (ExLibris) and OCLC’s WorldCat Local. They promised to revolutionize how students and researchers discover, access and use library resources of all types, and aim to provide a Google-like search experience for library collections without the pitfalls of federated searching. Consequently, librarians can focus on promoting information literacy rather than teaching information navigation techniques. This program examines how well discovery systems deliver on their promises four years into their development.