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Spotlight on the Digital: increase discovery of your digital resources
- 1. “If I can't find it, I can't use it.” Make sure your digitised resources are easy to discover The Spotlight on the Digital project http://bit.ly/Spotlight_project Paola Marchionni, Head of digital resources, Jisc 4 Sep 2014
- 2. A treasure chest at the bottom of the sea The Spotlight project found that digitised collections are like a treasure chest at the bottom of the sea: it’s there but not many people can find it.
- 3. Surfacing the treasure chest Spotlight investigated this challenge and identified practical solutions for “surfacing the jewels”, so that collections become more discoverable through the channels most commonly accessed by users . 3 Databases, library catalogues Personal recommendations
- 4. Surfacing the treasure chest Survey of Academics 2012 - ~ 40% …. begin their research processes at a general purpose search engine on the internet or world wide web - ~ one-third … begin their research at a specific electronic research resource - ~ less than 15% … start with an online library catalogue or a national or international catalogue or database - only a very few (2%) reported starting their research with a visit to the library building 4 Personal recommendations Databases, library catalogues Survey of Academics 2012, Ithaka S+R, Jisc, RLUK, p21 http://repository.jisc.ac.uk/5209/1/UK_Survey_of_Academics_2012_FINAL.pdf Spotlight literature review of discovery behaviours http://bit.ly/Spotlight_behaviours/
- 5. The Spotlight on the Digital project
- 6. The Spotlight on the Digital project What is it? Partnership project between Jisc, RLUK, SCONUL (Jun ‘13-Jan ‘14). http://bit.ly/Spotlight_project Part of Jisc co-design pilot programme to tackle sector’s concerns and develop new products and services http://www.jisc.ac.uk/research/funding Phase 2 starts in September 2014 and will last 2 years Aim define the discoverability problem in relation to digitised collections identify practical solutions to improve their discoverability
- 7. What Spotlight did Project gathered quantitative and qualitative evidence from: Expert group mtgs (15 library managers, curators and academics) Literature review on online information seeking behaviour http://bit.ly/Spotlight_behaviours Web-based assessment of 217 collections digitised between 1998-2003 funded by AHRC, Jisc and the New Opportunities Fund (of which 177 still live underwent manual and automated tests) http://bit.ly/Spotlight_outputs
- 8. What Spotlight did Technical forum – 18 technical practitioners and managers Library focus groups – involving 24 library and collection managers from HE institutions and National Libraries Library online survey – HE libraries with experience of digitisation (31 full institutional responses) Caveat – no access to usage figures for digitised collections. Web assessment tests more about testing good practice for web publishing not level of usage or impact of collections as such.
- 9. What Spotlight found Global search engines – search engines (such as Google) represent for the majority the default mechanism for discovering. But surveyed libraries believe key channels are open Institutional Repository first, and then Google and the Discovery Layer second. Popular web-scale channels – Channels such as Wikipedia and Flickr are regarded as starting points for students and researchers Social recommendation – The impact of recommendation and in particular the roles of experts and peers should not be underestimated; it may become more explicit as online ‘social’ services achieve critical mass and become more embedded in practice.
- 10. What Spotlight found Undiscoverable collections – Some collections become “lost” to the web over time (about 20% of the web assessment sample). Reasons range from poor exposure to search engines to the loss of web access to the content itself to relocation within other collections or aggregation services – which doesn’t necessarily mean that collections don’t exist anymore. Undiscoverable items – Items, as opposed to collections, are at most danger of being “lost” (only about 50% of items assessed appeared on the first page of Google results using the item name or title). http://bit.ly/Spotlight_items
- 11. Collections and item level performance tests Vertical axes indicate highest possible scores, horizontal axes indicate all collections tested (177) From top left clock wise: 1) Collections search engine discoverability: generally score well/least badly as illustrated by less steep fall-off across the sample 2) Two items discoverability: difference in scores between best and worst is greater than for collections, fall-off is quite steady 3) Wikipedia: very strong performance of some of the overall best scorers, spikes of those who do/do not work on Wikipedia citations 4) Social media (twitter): strong leading group followed by a sharp fall-off. These tests reveal degree of adoption of best practice and where there is scope for improvement – not “absolute” discoverability/use
- 12. Some great examples of good practice http://sounds.bl.uk http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit http://en.wikivet.net/OVAL http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/newton http://www.zandrarhodes.ucreative.ac.uk/ Examples of good practice in discoverability from a variety of institutions, collection types and formats
- 13. Spotlight on the Digital: outputs
- 14. #1: practical guides to improve discovery 9 inter-related guides covering: • make Google searches work for you • use social media • learn to use content aggregators • make collections available for teaching and learning • use popular web sites to reach broader audiences • improve the user experience • reach academic researchers • create collection champions • integrate with your organisation’s systems Spotlight produced practical bite-size guides for creators of digitised collections covering 9 areas to improve discoverability http://bit.ly/Spotlight_guide
- 15. All guides have same structure and some content items are in common.
- 19. Related Jisc resources Crowdsourcing: the wiki way of working Toolkit for the Impact of Digitised Scholarly Resources (TIDSR) Crowdsourcing: the wiki way of working http://bit.ly/crowdsourcing_jiscinfonet TIDSR: http://microsites.oii.ox.ac.uk/tidsr
- 20. #2: tools technical specifications National Library of Wales Tool to assess and manage the discoverability of online resources University of Sheffield Tool to develop discovery-friendly records Technical specifications for tools to support collection managers with tasks that would make discovery of content easier http://bit.ly/Spotlight_outputs
- 21. #3: Above campus recommendations Final report identified 7 areas for above-campus interventions: o capacity building o aggregations o foresight group o reliable reference service for automated url checking o software tools o content promotion o licensing services Final report and recommendations at http://bit.ly/Spotlight_report
- 22. All Spotlight All Spotlight outputs Online guides Make your digital resources easier to discover Final report Technical specifications for tools to support collection managers with tasks that would make discovery of content easier Web-based assessment of the discoverability of a sample of 177 digitsed resources Literature review on online user behaviours Online survey with libraries All outputs at http://bit.ly/Spotlight_outputs
- 23. All Spotlight Next steps Spotlight has funding for phase 2: £200,000 over 2 years Phase 2 starts Sep 2014 Prioritisation of above campus recommendations to identify viable services, tools and resources to develop, deliver and sustain Development of online guide Further consultation and community engagement activities If you are interested in taking part in phase 2, please get in touch!
- 24. Thank you Paola Marchionni, Jisc Head of digital resources for teaching, learning and research p.marchionni@jisc.ac.uk@paolamarchionni Digital Humanities Congress, Sheffield, 4-6 Sep 2014
- 25. Image credits • Treasure chest - Fernando Gregory https://www.flickr.com/photos/63082794@N00/6030879386/lightbox/?q=treasure%20chest%20sea • Social recommendation icon http://tinyurl.com/q2h2hyr CC Attribution - apart for the above images
Editor's Notes
- This survey also brings out a difference between searching to find a known resource, and searching to find new resources. For new resources a general search engine such as Google is the most likely starting point. For finding known resources, while many (around a quarter) also start with a general search engine it is more likely that the search will start either with the online library or a specific academic research resource. Engaging with peers rises to the top when considering methods of keeping up with the latest developments in a research field.
- Overall, the largest share of respondents–about 40%–indicated that they begin their research processes at a general purpose search engine on the internet or world wide web. A slightly smaller share–about one-third of respondents– indicated that they begin their research at a specific electronic research resource/ computer database. A relatively smaller share–slightly less than 15% each–of respondents reported starting with an online library catalogue or a national or international catalogue or database, and only a very few (2%) reported starting their research with a visit to the library building http://repository.jisc.ac.uk/5209/1/UK_Survey_of_Academics_2012_FINAL.pdf p. 21 This survey also brings out a difference between searching to find a known resource, and searching to find new resources. For new resources a general search engine such as Google is the most likely starting point. For finding known resources, while many (around a quarter) also start with a general search engine it is more likely that the search will start either with the online library or a specific academic research resource. Engaging with peers rises to the top when considering methods of keeping up with the latest developments in a research field.
- On final report it says 217
- Caveat: From Web assessment report: Tests such as the ones described in this document at best offer only proxy measures for discoverability. Many of the tests described assess how far digitised collections follow established good practice for web publishing, and we can see that there are examples where good practice has been completely ignored but a Google search for an item by name, or by relevant search terms still finds the specific item within the collection easily. Anecdotally such cases seem linked to rare or unique items (e.g. a particular manuscript), while non-unique items (e.g. common objects, such a ‘spear’, where the context or description is what offers added value) can fare badly in terms of discoverability no matter what good practice is followed. However, despite these limitations the assessments do highlight areas where good practice is not being followed, and so offer some insight into what actions could be taken to improve the discoverability of these digital collections.
- Global search enginges: Regardless of the role and experience of the individual, search engines (such as Google) represent for the majority the default mechanism for discovering and locating content. However, the Spotlight survey (Question 11) indicates that a majority of institutions believe that the three key discovery mechanisms are, in order, the Institutional Repository, Google and the selected Discovery Layer.
- Collection score – Search Engine discoverability (Scored out of 38) - This covers the manually assessed search engine discoverability tests (within Area 1 above). URL well formed? Page title present? Page title well formed? Page description present? Title search ranking on Google page 1? Can be found using "sensible" related search terms? Collections generally score well / least badly here – as illustrated by the less steep fall-off of across the sample and the relatively less poor lower scores.
- Guidebook High level categories Point about technical things but it’s about sustainability under a numebr of different aspects (technical, editorial, comms and marketing; relevance to res, teahc, and learn, champions)
- Institutional capacity building - Projects delivering explicit capacity development outcomes for the project partners and resulting in open best practice documentation Role of aggregations - Engaging aggregators in content rehabilitation, transfer and mirroring projects to ensure that key digitised content is sustainably discoverable Foresight group - Expert group meetings, assessing socio-technical trends and posting open advice Reliable reference service - Development and operation of an automated online link checking and notification service and supporting website Software Tools - Small open source software projects to develop tools, building on existing code Content promotion - Strategically targeted press and social media activity, working in tandem with institutions, seeking national recognition and community amplification Content licensing - Legally informed work to establish open licensing with rights clearance for both previously and newly digitised content where there is an appropriate level of interest