Pursuing Better Search Experience: Lessons Learned from Beta-Testing EBSCO Discovery Service

Win Shih, Head of Library Systems, University at Albany Libraries Vivien E. Zazzau, User Education/Reference Librarian, University at Albany Libraries

In fall 2009, University at Albany Libraries joined other 30 plus academic libraries in working with EBSCO to develop its new discovery product: EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS). A taskforce was formed to lead the project with members from various functional areas in the Library, including collection development, public service, user education, and library systems. Over the last few months, the taskforce works closely with EBSCO in configuring our testing site and take part in weekly webinars where EBSCO engineers and developers discuss and demonstrate new features and functionality with, as well as seek inputs from, beta-testers. In order to integrate library local collection into the EDS single database, we extract the complete library catalog, about 2 million MARC records, and loaded them into our EDS profile. We also send EBSCO a complete set of our electronic resource holding records from our Serials Solutions Knowledge Base. For EDS search interface, we customize it with our institution’s color scheme, logo, library tool bar, and banner, as well as incorporate links to other key resources. EDS’ administration tool also allows us to develop search widgets that can be placed at library’s website. In addition, the task force conducts an content analysis of the EDS resources, as well as coordinate the usability and functionality testing of this new service. In our presentation, we will share with the audience our experience in configuring and testing this service and report our content analysis. Furthermore, we will talk about the issues and staff resources required to support this service. Finally, we would like to provide an update on our plan in implementing and marketing this service.