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University of Liverpool Chooses EBSCO Discovery Service(TM)Sep 14, 2010 (PRWeb.com via COMTEX) -- University of Liverpool (http://www.liv.ac.uk/library) has selected EBSCO Discovery Service(TM) (http://www.ebscohost.com/discovery) (EDS) from EBSCO Publishing (www.ebscohost.com) as its discovery solution. The university was looking to offer a search tool that would take its users from their initial search into pertinent results via a single search box. The library had been relying on a federated search option but was looking for a more complete solution that would provide access to local resources, including the ability to cross-search locally-owned resources with licensed resources while also including Institutional Repository content in general search results. At the same time, the library saw discovery and a single search box approach as a way to meet the needs of users who are accustomed to searching Google or Wikipedia but who really needed to find the reliable academic content in library resources. Discovery was an interesting concept for University of Liverpool librarians and they looked to determine the issues a discovery solution would need to overcome. To the librarians at the University of Liverpool, those issues included: the difficulty end users might have being sure what the service was searching and what it wasn't; making sure the metadata was sufficiently well-structured to make reliable OpenURL links-even difficult deep links; and finding a balanced way to treat relevancy ranking algorithms to ensure that users were seeing the most relevant results in the framework of a large, single, all-encompassing database. In introducing a discovery service, the library was looking to cater to a wide spectrum of users from novices to more advanced users. University of Liverpool Electronic Resources Manager, Terry Bucknell says the EDS approach gave the university the best of both worlds. "On one hand we have a single search that quickly gives a useful set of relevant hits from named sources. It shows our users which sources yield the most hits so that librarians have an 'upgrade path' to wean users onto searching key A&I databases using advanced search techniques (e.g. MeSH for MEDLINE(R)). It also gives us the ability to include federated search results when we have resources that we know can't be included in discovery tools." Liverpool will use EDS as the main search box on its home page along with an upgraded OPAC. The library will use the multiple profile option in EBSCO Discovery Service to provide comprehensive coverage for given subjects. University of Liverpool subject librarians want to be sure that they are directing their users to a resource that gives them comprehensive coverage without overwhelming them with irrelevant hits. With EDS, subject librarians can tweak the look and feel and provide customizable search and display options to suit 'their' clientele. Subject-specific LibGuides will be implemented at the University of Liverpool along with profile-specific EDS search boxes serving as anchors to more specific lists of subject resources. The library will also use EBSCOhost Integrated Search(TM) (http://www.ebscohost.com/discovery/default.php?id=3) to add resources that cannot be locally-indexed into the discovery results. Leveraging the well-known EBSCOhost(R) interface as the foundation of EBSCO Discovery Service, including resources such as SmartLinks(TM) and Image Quick View(TM), is another way EDS is able to provide comprehensive coverage for the end user. Bucknell says," an added bonus is the way that EDS can use EBSCO-hosted content to give full-text links that are guaranteed to work and to include images from articles in search results." EBSCO Discovery Service creates a unified, customized index of an institution's information resources, and an easy, yet powerful means of accessing all of that content from a single search box-searching made even more powerful because of the quality of metadata and depth and breadth of coverage. The Base Index for EBSCO Discovery Service forms the foundation upon which each EDS subscribing library builds out its custom collection. Beginning with the Base Index, each institution extends the reach of EDS by adding appropriate resources including its catalog, institutional repositories, EBSCOhost and other databases, and additional content sources to which it subscribes. It is this combination that allows a single, comprehensive, custom solution for discovering the value of any library's collection. The EDS Base Index is comprised of metadata from the world's foremost information providers. At present, the EDS Base Index represents content from approximately 20,000 providers in addition to metadata from another 70,000 book publishers. Although constantly growing, today the EDS Base Index provides metadata for nearly 50,000 magazines & journals, approximately 825,000 CDs & DVDs, nearly six million books, more than 100,000 newspaper articles, more than 20,000 conference proceedings and hundreds of thousands of additional information sources from various source-types. About EBSCO Publishing EBSCO Publishing is the world's premier database aggregator, offering a suite of more than 300 full-text and secondary research databases. Through a library of tens of thousands of full-text journals, magazines, books, monographs, reports and various other publication types from renowned publishers, EBSCO serves the content needs of all researchers (Academic, Medical, K-12, Public Library, Corporate, Government, etc.). The company's product lines include proprietary databases such as Academic Search(TM), Business Source(R), CINAHL(R), DynaMed(TM), Literary Reference Center(TM), MasterFILE(TM), NoveList(R), SocINDEX(TM) and SPORTDiscus(TM) as well as dozens of leading licensed databases such as ATLA Religion Database(TM), EconLit, Inspec(R), MEDLINE(R), MLA International Bibliography, The Philosopher's Index(TM), PsycARTICLES(R) and PsycINFO(R). Databases are powered by EBSCOhost(R), the most-used for-fee electronic resource in libraries around the world. EBSCO is the provider of EBSCO Discovery Service(TM) a core collection of locally-indexed metadata creating a unified index of an institution's resources within a single, customizable search point providing everything the researcher needs in one place-fast, simple access to the library's full text content, deeper indexing and more full-text searching of more journals and magazines than any other discovery service (www.ebscohost.com/discovery). For more information, visit the EBSCO Publishing Web site at: www.ebscohost.com. EBSCO Publishing is a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., one of the largest privately held companies in the United States. ### Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/Liverpool/ChoosesEDS/prweb4500374.htm. PRWeb.com |