Accessibility of Scholarly ResourcesHow users approach academic research

and the implications for content providers

________Sue Maniloff

ProQuest

Alliance Manager, Global Content

sue.maniloff@proquest.com

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

The superior source for quality, credible content

Preferred for academic research and course assignments

Research Indicates

The easiest place to start the research process

Actual User Behavior

Chief Inhibitors to Success

• Hundreds of databases

• Tens of thousands of journals

• Millions of books

The typical university library has…

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. Rather than having students use Google, we need to make libraries the best, first choice to do research for anything.”

Librarian

“There is a need for the most simplest of interfaces to provide to the customer while simultaneously giving the customer a rich information store in a Google type environment.”

Librarian

“We are still not user-friendly enough. Our users … expectations are that when they type something in they will get results—they 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.”

Mike Eisenberg

Dean Emeritus & Professor

University of Washington

Information School

"I have seen the future of how libraries will provide "I have seen the future of how libraries will provide access to information, resources, and collections. access to information, resources, and collections. It's called "Summon" by Serial Solutions and it can It's called "Summon" by Serial Solutions and it can become equally important as Google in everyone's become equally important as Google in everyone's everyday information seeking and use.”everyday information seeking and use.”

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

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