2014 Charleston Conference Friday, Nov 7, 3:15 PM Presented by Lea Currie and Julie Petr

1. How Do Librarians
Prefer to Access
Collections?Julie Petr and Lea Currie
University of Kansas Libraries
November 7, 2014

2. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
Background
In 2002, as part of the Digital Library Initiative, the KU Libraries
implemented ENCompass (Endeavor Information Systems)
Joined as a development partner
Was to be the primary search mechanism
Problems were encountered

3. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
Background
KU Libraries developed a new Information Gateway with a new
discovery tool
A persona exercise was used to guide the advisory team
Serials Solutions’ 360 Search was the next tool
implemented
Problems were encountered

4. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
Next generation discovery tool
In 2011, a task force was formed to research and review new discovery tools
Commercial and open source
Primo (ExLibris) was chosen
A year in development
Problems encountered while in development
Loading records from Voyager
Proquest and EBSCO would not allow their content in Primo, although recently
Proquest has started adding content to Primo Central
Problems with the Serial Solutions link resolver

5. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
The promise of Primo
Google-like search
Facets to help users narrow searches
Suggest new searches or alternative search terms
Check availability and location
Recall items or retrieve from shelf
Save search results

6. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
Problems encountered with Primo
Librarians confused about what it is searching
Upgrades – two steps forward and one step back
LibGuides stopped working in Primo

7. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
Primo improvements
Content regularly added
Browse search
Ability of search by ISBN, ISSN, OCLC code, and publisher
Shelf browse

8. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
The Survey Instrument
Provide feedback from librarian colleagues
Compare Primo with Google Scholar
Compare with favorite subject database
Known item search
Topic Search
Search a typical topic in subject area
Rank results and compare results
3 positives and 3 suggestions for improvement

9. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
We asked 12 librarians to complete the survey
8 surveys were completed
Librarians reported that it took 2-3 hours to complete
What we would do differently
Better and more explicit instructions
Use these exact search terms to do the known item search
Think about this exercise like a librarian and do not try to get
into the head of a student
Design the survey so that it does not take so much time to complete

10. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
Known item search
Using Primo and Google Scholar, please conduct the following known
item search
Tennessee Williams – A Streetcar Named Desire

11. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
4 librarians preferred Primo results
1 librarian preferred Google Scholar results
3 librarians expressed no preference
3 librarians reported that they would not have used Primo or Google Scholar
for this search – they would have selected the online catalog or Google Books

12. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
Librarians were surprised at the range of results in both Primo and Google
Scholar
One librarian noted that a number of results were related to musical versions, leading
to the concern that this might mislead a student into thinking that the play is a
musical
Several librarians reported that none of the first 10 results linked to the play, but
rather returned literary criticism and scholarly articles about the play
- “In comparing the two searches, I would feel somewhat frustrated that I did not
locate the play, ‘A Streetcar Named Desire,’ easily in either search interface.
However, in the Primo search I did eventually get a call number and location
after narrowing by format, then by author. In the Google Scholar search, I never
did find a digitized version”

13. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
Several of the librarians reported using the facets to narrow down the results
- “My first reaction to these results is that they are probably less useful to
most undergraduates who might be doing a search on both Primo and
Google Scholar. The Primo results look to be (a) almost immediately useful
and (b) less scholarly. I would add that Primo allows more options along the
left side for refining the search.

14. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
Prescribed search
Using Primo and Google Scholar, please conduct a search for the
following topic:
Treatment for attention deficit disorder

15. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
Librarians were asked to rank on a scale of 1-5 the first 10 results of both
searches, with a 1 being the most relevant and a 5 being not relevant at all.
Google Scholar scored 2.13
Primo scored 2.69

16. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
7 of the librarians preferred the results in Google Scholar
- “With respect to ADD, both were relevant and useful in their own ways.
The top 10 Primo results were more recent, but the top Google Scholar
results perhaps got at the topic better.”

17. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
2 of the librarians preferred the results found in Primo, with 1 librarian noting
that the facets in Primo made the results similar to those found in Google Scholar.
- “I believe that Google Scholar gave a better concentration of relevant items.
When I eliminated reviews, newspapers articles, AV, etc., the results were
more on a par with Google Scholar.”

18. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
Subject specific database search
Using your favorite subject specific database, please conduct a search using a
typical research question in your subject area. What is your search strategy?
What resource and search terms did you use?

19. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
Librarians were asked to rank the first 10 results of the subject specific database
search, with a 1 being the most relevant and 5 being not relevant at all.
1 librarian rated the database results with a 3
2 librarians rated the database results with a 2
5 librarians rated the results with a 1

20. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
6 of the librarians preferred the subject specific database results over any they
had found in Primo or Google Scholar.
- “I think it is clear that using the proper subject database is much more
effective IF you have an idea of what you need to retrieve AND realize that
kind of question needs a sophisticated, built-over-time tool.”

21. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
1 librarian expressed surprise at the quality of the results in Primo
- “I was surprised that Primo compared more favorably than Google Scholar
for the prescribed searches in 1 & 2. I still got the best search results by
going to my subject database to search for materials on a typical topic for
[the discipline].”

22. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
Positives and Suggested Improvements
Librarians were asked to share positive comments about Primo
Librarians were asked to share suggested improvements for Primo

23. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
Positive comments about Primo
The facets and filtering options
The browse-the-shelf feature
Find information resources one might not have considered
Easy to use
Some relevant results were found quickly
“If I didn’t know which database to search, it would be a good place to start”

24. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
Suggestions for improvement
Better de-duping
Not certain what material is being searched
Needs to reduce the number of results returned
Relevancy rankings need improvement
Multiple “versions” are confusing

25. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
Recommendations and conclusions
One of the most common complaints among the librarians was too many
duplicated results
Collection librarians may be able to alleviate this problem to some
degree by turning off some of the duplicative content available in Primo
Central
Will the addition of Proquest to Primo Central increase duplication?
Primo now “FRBRizes” results and groups them together so that it is
easier to tell that you are looking at the same title
Librarians are not satisfied with the relevancy ranking of Primo results, but
the IT staff continues to upgrade Primo which has improved results

26. How Do Librarians Prefer to Access
Collections?
Recommendations and conclusions
The survey will be most beneficial to the development group by serving as a
benchmark
Developers can use the search terms from the survey in Primo after each
upgrade and compare their results to those in the surveys to find out if
the upgrade improved the results
The results from the survey drove home the need to educate the librarians
and engage them in using Primo on a regular basis
Librarians think Primo is a federated search tool
Primo Central is an index that provides content from individual
publishers, scholarly societies, institutional repositories, and local
collections as well as databases

27. Questions?
Julie Petr – jpetr@ku.edu
Lea Currie – lcurrie@ku.edu
University of Kansas Libraries