Presented as part of a panel at the 2015 Charleston Conference by Christopher Brown, University of Denver Libraries.

1. Discovery: Beyond Initial Implementation &
Participation - and into Collaborative
Optimization
Scott Bernier, Senior Vice President, EBSCO Information Services
Christopher C. Brown, Reference Technology Integration Librarian,
University of Denver Libraries
Julie Zhu, Discovery Service Relations Manager, IEEE
The Charleston Conference
November 15, 2015

2. Unevenness of Discovery
Christopher C. Brown

3. “The Old Days”
• Only metadata searched (author, title, descriptors, abstract)
• All types of information had an “equal chance” of being discovered
“The Present Discovery Days”
• Sometimes only metadata, and sometimes full text is searched
• This leads to greater discovery “chances” for full text materials over
metadata-only materials

4. Metasearch or Broadcast Search
Innovative technology, but never lived up to expectations
• Web Metasearch Examples: Metasearch, Dogpile
• Library Metasearch Examples: MetaLib, Research Pro, ENCompass,
Central Search/360 Search, WebFeat, AGent, iBistro

5. Metasearch or broadcast search was a fail

6. Metasearch or Broadcast Search
Was often referred to as “federated search” but it
was not; at best it was federated results.
Web-scale discovery tools are the real “federated
search”. But since vendors already used that term,
they had to invent “discovery”.
Query
Merging and de-duping on-the-fly
Federated Results
Metadata and sometimes FT
Query
Federated Search and Federated Results
Broadcast Search Webscale Discovery
Metadata only
Information Silos

7. Issue Here is “Depth of Searching”
© 2015 Christopher C. Brown

8. Breadth and Depth
Breadth refers to the number and
kinds of resources covered. Google
Scholar is rather narrow in breadth,
covering scholarly articles, selected
technical reports, and Google Books
“bleadthrough”. Discovery tools are
much broader in scope, covering
books and ebooks, magazine articles,
scholarly articles, trade publications,
newsletters, newspapers,
dissertations, technical reports,
maps, audio-visual materials,
institutional repositories, and many
other sources.
Depth refers to how deeply a search
tool goes down into the resource.
Google (Google Web, Google Scholar,
and Google Books) usually indexes
full text of nearly everything.
Discovery tools vary greatly in their
full text search reach. Sometimes
they don’t have access to the full
text, only metadata. Other times they
have access but choose not to
provide full text search access.

9. Metasearch tools were weak, but they
searched rather evenly
Magazines
Scholarly
Journals
Dissertations
Surface
Searching
Newspapers
eBooks
Print Books
Gov Info

10. Indexing: title, author, keywords, abstract
Gov InfoMagazines Scholarly
Journals
Dissertations
Discovery Tools
Surface
Searching
Deep
Searching
Newspapers
eBooks
Print
Books
Full text of content – Every last word
Google Scholar
Full text of content – Every last word
Scholarly
Journals
Google
Books
“bleedthrough”
Misc:
tech rpts,
other
Let’s Face It: Google Scholar Does It Better: There is Room for Improvement

11. Example from Newspaper Content
• “uniforms are by the designer
Cynthia Rowley. The 189 rooms”
• New York Times article, August
20, 2006.

12. Newspaper Article – Primo (U. of Washington)
“uniforms are by the designer Cynthia Rowley. The 189 rooms”
New York Times article, August 20, 2006.
Word Count: 1613
SR to FT ratio 1:1

13. Newspaper Article – Summon (U. of Denver)
“uniforms are by the designer Cynthia Rowley. The 189 rooms”
New York Times article, August 20, 2006.
Word Count: 1613
SR to FT ratio 1:1

14. Newspaper Article – Ebsco EDS (Idaho State U.)
“uniforms are by the designer Cynthia Rowley. The 189 rooms”
New York Times article, August 20, 2006.
Word Count: 1613
SR to FT ratio 1:1

15. Book Example
Skidmore, Thomas E. 1988. The politics of military rule in Brazil,
1964-85. New York: Oxford University Press
"risen for the government. President Figueiredo" p. 223

16. Book Example – Summon (U. of Denver)
Numbered Pages: 420
SR to FT ratio 1:1
Skidmore, Thomas E. 1988. The politics of military rule in Brazil,
1964-85. New York: Oxford University Press
"risen for the government. President Figueiredo" p. 223

17. Book Example – Ebsco EDS (Idaho State U.)
Skidmore, Thomas E. 1988. The politics of military rule in Brazil,
1964-85. New York: Oxford University Press
"risen for the government. President Figueiredo" p. 223
Numbered Pages: 420
SR to FT ratio 1:1

18. Not Good, Not Bad – Simply Explanatory
• Some results present because of 1:10,000 hit situation
• Some results present because of 1:15 hit situation
• Some results present because of 1:1 hit situation
• Implications: potential biasing of FT over non-FT materials