1 Transparency in Discovery: Marshall Breeding April 7, 2014 Issues and progress in the.

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Transparency in Discovery:

Marshall Breedinghttp://www.librarytechnology.org/http://twitter.com/mbreeding

April 7, 2014

Issues and progress in the ecosystem of

Index-based Discovery

Description

• Breeding, co-chair of the NISO Open Discovery Initiative, describes the general landscape of library resource discovery products, the trend toward web-scale, index-based services, and some of the issues that sparked this initiative to bring increased transparency and other improvements to the ecosystem involving libraries, content providers, and discovery service creators.

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Online Catalog

• Books, Journals, and Media at the Title Level

• Not in scope:– Articles– Book Chapters– Digital objects

Scope of SearchSearch:

Search Results

ILS Data

Index-based Discovery

Search:

Digital Collections

Web Site Content

Institutional

Repositories

…E-Journals

Reference Sources

Search Results

Pre-built harvesting and indexing

Consolidated Index

ILS Data

Aggregated Content packages

(2009- present)

Usage-generate

dData

Customer

Profile

Open Access

Discovery Service Installations

Product 2007 2008 2009 20102011 2012 2013Installe

d

EBSCO EDS 1774 5612

Primo 12 37 53 506 111 101 98 1407

AquaBrowser 55 339 64 69 74 58 81 750

Encore 72 72 109 56 72 36 346

LS2 PAC   46 77 58 88 73 81 382

Summon     50 164 214 158 238 673

Enterprise   16  75 100 102 123 407

Civica Sorcer     7 12 22 3 42

Axiell Arena     61 57 33 35 316

Chamo     10 34 7 23 36 128

Discovery Concerns

• Important space for libraries and publishers

• Discovery brings value to library collections

• Discovery brings uncertainty to publishers

• Uneven participation diminishes impact

• Ecosystem dominated by private agreements

• Complexity and uncertainty poses barriers for participation

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Heterogeneous Representations• Content objects represented by

– MARC Records for books and journal titles

– Citation data for articles– Full text for articles– Full text for books– Abstracts and Indexing data

• Controlled vocabularies, related terms, abstracts, selected index terms produced by subject experts

– Other metadata or enrichment

Discovery index issues

• Indexing full-text enables keyword-based relevancy

• Citations or structured metadata provide basic terms to support search & retrieval and faceted navigation

• A&I terms provide access points, relevancy indicators that cannot be reproduced algorithmically

• Important to understand what is indexed– Currency, dates covered, full-text or citation– Many other factors

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Library Perspective

• Strategic investments in subscriptions• Strategic investments in Discovery Solutions to

provide access to their collections• Expect comprehensive representation of resources

in discovery indexes– Problem with access to resources not represented in

index– Encourage all publishers to participate and to lower

thresholds of technical involvement and clarify the business rules associated with involvement

• Need to be able to evaluate the coverage and performance of competing index-based discovery products

Collection Coverage?

• To work effectively, discovery services need to cover comprehensively and evenly the body of content represented in library collections

• What primary publishers participate?• What secondary or A&I publishers

participate?• Is content indexed at the citation or full-

text level?• What are the restrictions for non-

authenticated users?• How can libraries understand the

differences in coverage among competing services?

Web-scale search problem

Search:

Search Results

Pre-built harvesting and

indexing

Consolidated

Index

???

Non Participating

Content Sources

Problem in how to deal with resources not provided to ingest into consolidated index

Digital Collections

Web Site Content

Institutional Repositories

…E-Journals

ILS Data

Aggregated Content packages

Representation of A&I

• Important to understand how a discovery service incorporates A&I resources– Does it receive content from the A&I

provider directly and make use of value-added terminology

– If not: citations or full-text indexing of some portion of the titles represented in the A&I product

– NOT the same, and possibly misleading12

Evaluating the Coverage of Index-based Discovery Services

• Intense competition: how well the index covers the body of scholarly content stands as a key differentiator

• Difficult to evaluate based on numbers of items indexed alone.

• Important to ascertain how your library’s content packages are represented by the discovery service.

• Important to know what items are indexed by citation, which are full text, and how A&I content is handled

Some Key Areas for Publishers1. Expose content appropriately2. Trust that access to material will be

controlled consistent with subscription terms

3. “Fair” Linking4. Materials not disadvantaged or

underrepresented in library discovery implementations

5. Usage reporting

Library Technology Reports• The Current State of Library Resource

Discovery Products: Context, Library Perspectives, and Vendor Positions

• In press for Publication January 2014

LTR Components

• Vender questionnaire• Library Survey• Industry announcements• Other articles and publications

Library Discovery Survey

Academic 247

Consortium 15Government Agency

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Law 7Medical 5Museum 1National 1Other 1Public 96Special 14State 4Theology 3

• Survey executed to gather data from libraries regarding their experiences with discovery services

• Responses received by 396 Libraries:

• 29 Countries represented, 252 responses from United States

Overall Effectiveness

Comprehensiveness: Academic Libraries

Relevancy Effectiveness

Objectivity in Discovery

Objectivity in Discovery: Academics

Example Product rating chart

OPEN DISCOVERY INITIATIVE

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Facilitate a healthy ecosystem among

discovery service providers, libraries and content

providers

ODI context

ODI Pre-History

• June 26, 2011: Exploratory meeting @ ALA Annual

• July 2011: NISO expresses interest• Aug 7, 2011: Proposal drafted by

participants submitted to NISO• Aug 2011: Proposal accepted by D2D• Vote of approval by NISO

membership• Oct 2011: ODI launched• Feb 2012: ODI Workgroup Formed

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Organization

• Reports in NISO through Document to Delivery topic committee (D2D)

• Staff support from NISO through Nettie Lagace

• Co-Chairs– Jenny Walker (Ex Libris)– Marshall Breeding (Library Consultant)

• D2D Observers: Jeff Penka (OCLC)Lucy Harrison (CCLA)

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ODI Timeline

MilestoneTarget Date

Status

Appointment of working group Dec 2011

Approval of charge and initial work plan Mar 2012

Agreement on process and tools Jun 2012

Completion of information gathering Jan 2013

Completion of initial draft Jun 2013

Completion of final draft Sep 2013

Public comment Nov 2013

Revision and Approval Apr 201428

Balance of Constituents

Libraries

Publishers

Service Providers

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Marshall Breeding, Vanderbilt UniversityJamene Brooks-Kieffer, Kansas State University Laura Morse, Harvard UniversityKen Varnum, University of Michigan

Sara Brownmiller, University of Oregon

Lucy Harrison, College Center for Library Automation (D2D liaison/observer)Michele Newberry

Lettie Conrad, SAGE PublicationsRoger Schonfeld, ITHAKA/JSTOR/PorticoJeff Lang, Thomson Reuters

Linda Beebe, American Psychological AssocAaron Wood, Alexander Street Press

Jenny Walker, Ex Libris GroupJohn Law, Serials SolutionsMichael Gorrell, EBSCO Information ServicesDavid Lindahl, University of Rochester (XC)

Jeff Penka, OCLC (D2D liaison/observer)

ODI Project Goals:

• Identify … needs and requirements of the three stakeholder groups in this area of work.

• Create recommendations and tools to streamline the process by which information providers, discovery service providers, and librarians work together to better serve libraries and their users.

• Provide effective means for librarians to assess the level of participation by information providers in discovery services, to evaluate the breadth and depth of content indexed and the degree to which this content is made available to the user.

Specific deliverables

• Standard vocabulary• NISO Recommended Practice:

– Data format & transfer– Communicating content rights– Levels of indexing, content availability– Linking to content– Usage statistics– Evaluate compliance

• Inform and Promote Adoption31

ODI Stakeholder Survey

• Collected data from Sept 11 thru Oct 4, 2012

• Each subgroup developed questions pertinent to it area of concern

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Selected results

• Libraries: do you use a discovery service?– Yes: 74%, Planning to soon: 17%, No:

5%, Don’t know: 4%• Smallest discoverable unit:

– Component title: 9%, Article: 25%, Collective work record: 11%, All the above: 50%

• Linking from A&I entry: 75 prefer linking to full text on original publisher’s server

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Content providers (74)

• Contribute data: Yes-All: 44%, Some: 48%, No: 8%– Current data: 12%, Current + back files:

85• Barriers to contributing:

– IP concerns, technology, staff resources• Challenges in delivery:

– Complicated formats: 15%, transmission of data: 18, allocation of personnel: 23%, can’t automate: 12%, None: 20%

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Issues surrounding A&I resources• Concern that A&I resources not be

freely available to non authenticated users and only for subscribing institutions

• How to “credit” A&I data that contributes to search results– Example: Index entry produced by

enhancing full-text with A&I data• Preservation of the value added by

A&I in the discovery ecosystem35

ODI Final Report

• Issued for public Comment• Comment period closed November

18, 2013

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Report Topics

• Introduction– In scope / out of scope– Terms and definitions

• Evolution of Discovery– Related initiatives

• Recommendations

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General Recommendations• Create oversight group• Conformance checklist for:

– Discovery Service Providers– Content Providers

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Recommendations for Content Providers• Content providers should make items

available to discovery service providers. – Basic: Citations: specific metadata

elements– Enhanced: additional metadata + Full-

text• Provide to Libraries: disclosure of

participation in discovery services

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Recommendations for Discovery Service Creators• Disclosure of content indexed

– Specific metadata fields• Fair / non-biased linking

– Mechanisms for libraries to choose versions preferred for linking

– Annual statement regarding neutrality of linking or relevance

– Provide links to A&I services when applicable• Usage statistics to Publishers

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Current work Next Steps

• Finalize document based on comments from ODI members

• Submit for final approval by NISO D2D

• Hopefully finished by the end of April 2014

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Connect with ODI

• ODI Project website:http://www.niso.org/workrooms/odi/

• Interest group mailing list:http://www.niso.org/lists/opendiscovery/

• Email ODI:[email protected]

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Discovery Service Trends

• Progress in cooperation between content providers and discovery– ProQuest announces deals with OCLC

and Ex Libris• Technical development of discovery

services continues– Improved methods for relevancy and

tools for exploring library resources• Convergence of Discovery with new

Library Services Platforms43

Convergence

• Discovery and Management solutions will increasingly be implemented as matched sets– Ex Libris: Primo / Alma– Serials Solutions: Summon / Intota– OCLC: WorldCat Local / WorldShare Platform– Except: Kuali OLE, EBSCO Discovery Service

• Both depend on an ecosystem of interrelated knowledge bases

• API’s exposed to mix and match, but efficiencies and synergies are lost

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QUESTIONS?

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