Exploring Discovery

We’re in a new age of Discovery. Not of the physical world but rather one that serves up appropriate resources for your library’s researchers, thanks to advancements in handling metadata, natural language processing, and keyword searching. For you, Discovery might be shorthand for single-index products such as Serials’ Solutions Summon, EBSCO Discovery, and OCLC’s WorldCat Discovery. Yet even those tools require adjustments to meet your institution’s specific needs. With first-hand profiles of 19 library projects, Varnum and his roster of contributors offer guidance on the complete range of discovery services, from the broad sweep of vendors’ products to the fine points of specialized holdings. Topics include:migrating from a traditional ILS to a library services platformcreating a task list for usability testing of discoverymanaging internal development requirements within the constraints of a small or mid-sized libraryapplying agile software methodology to a Blacklight implementationreal-world examples of usability testing, including a small liberal arts college’s implementation of VuFindmeeting the challenge of three different metadata formatspractices in the Primo community for integrating open access content into the front endserving mobile users with an app and responsive Web designanalyzing the use of facets in searchusing a single discovery tool across a library, museum, and archive; andimplementing discovery with geospatial datasets.Easy to dip into as needed, this comprehensive examination of discovery services will prove invaluable to IT, web development, electronic resource management, and technical services staff.