Analysis and news: Discovery
The future of library search Search tools and services have a bright outlook – if they can support users in their preferred workflows, writes Matthew Hayes
Most students and researchers now begin their discovery process outside the library – on open discovery tools like Google Scholar. A study of patron practices among OhioLink libraries found that six per cent of discovery journeys begin on the library’s discovery service, with more than 40 per cent beginning on Google or Google Scholar.
This does not mean library search tools
and services will become redundant, but it does mean striving to put the library ‘in the life of the user’, by taking services such as library search to ‘where users actually are, rather than where libraries would like them to be’ (Pinfield et al., 2017). It also means recognising the value libraries bring to patrons’ discovery – and amplifying it.
Library search: much more than a search engine Library search encompasses much more than the library search engine. I’d like to suggest three core areas: access, curation and discovery. Despite rapid growth in OA, substantial
variation by discipline and region suggests access to paywalled content will remain a concern for libraries and their patrons over the next few years – it is estimated that 72 per cent of scholarly publications are not yet OA (Day et al. 2020). Covid, and the rapid shift to remote access it necessitated, further highlighted the cumbersome, time-consuming and often confusing access workflow users have to go through – often giving up or moving to Sci-Hub (Bohannon, 2016). Access workflows remain largely IP and token based, and both methods have been increasingly problematic in times when the library’s psychical availability has been compromised. Additionally, it is assumed that the library portal is the starting point when, as we have seen, it invariably isn’t. Setting aside the substantial work at the
library to train, guide and support students and researchers through the access workflow, there are a number of sector- wide initiatives underway to improve the access experience. The big discovery services – EBSCO, OCLC, ExLibris and
14 Research Information June/July 2021
“There are a number of sector-wide initiatives underway to improve the access experience”
others – are working directly with key parts of the discovery process, such as Google Scholar, Wikipedia, reading list software and learning management systems, to improve access workflows by embedding their link resolvers into discovery starting points outside the library. Publisher and other community stakeholder initiatives, such as GetFTR, are working on the means of authentication itself, proposing new ways such as federated authentication. Then there are browser plug-ins such
as Lean Library and Clarivate’s EndNote Click, which improve access workflows by sitting in the user’s workflow, working
behind the scenes by integrating with library systems. Libraries have a crucial role to play in mediating these initiatives, ensuring questions of user experience, privacy, security and insights are addressed, and designing the specific access workflows that best serve the needs of their users.
Libraries should not lose sight of curation of external content Libraries have put increased resources into the development of institutional repositories and other parts of what Dempsey calls ‘the inside-out collection’ (2016) – the output of the university’s own researchers. Commercial discovery services have made moves in this space, launching new software tools to manage the inside-out collection, whether special collections showcases or preprint servers. Efforts are also being made to embed this institutional content into the workflow. Examples include thesis and
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