Brian C. Gray presenting Analyzing and Selecting the Best Discovery Solution for Your Users and Organization(s). Library website: http://library.case.edu/ksl/.
How to make a decision? Gray worked with OHIOLink and started with a list of specifications as well as how all the user audiences would work with each service. Wanted the search to be comprehensive, not federated, able to be embedded in other library resources, and ease of maintenance. Gray worked with a small group of people and focused on making decisions quickly.
What are the challenges? All the products are very different. Very different. Librarians and average library user have very different expectations and viewpoints. Hard to answer the question – “what is this tool searching?” – because of the complexities in the index. Thinks about the diversity of users – can you provide customized tools for different communities? Discovery process changes rapidly – perhaps too fast for librarians to manage. How difficult is it to change and maintain our holdings? Have someone that works with all users, someone with cataloging/metadata expertise, IT and webmaster, financial agent.
Advice: Take advantage of trials. Make sure staffing is sufficient. Don’t take too long in making the decision. Do local inventories: processes, technology, expertise, time, and financial resources. Define your local goals! Gray’s goals included: drive usage to certain resources, increase resource usage, change user behaviors, help people brainstorm ideas, speed up research, challenge the “google mindset,” change library instruction, reduce the number of access points, provide a common tool, what’s your long term plan, what’s your level of commitment? Beyond goals, prioritize things. Things like: user needs, local customizations, addition costs, what level of control do you have, multilingual interface, user customization options, how does it work with backend management tools, usage statistics, facets customization, what level of support do you require, can you add local content?
Create a list of specifications; list them and then score them (yes/no or a numeric scale) and what are the “must have” features. Gray has a collection of great rubrics for evaluating discovery services.
Don’t take forever to implement – start in beta and make changes accordingly. You won’t be perfect, it will get better. Work with the vendors and take full advantage of their skills. Expect constant change.