Discovery Work Streams

OSUL Discovery Project Work Streams

The user experience, aka, the discovery layer

Currently, the Libraries places an undue burden on the user to make a myriad of decisions when approaching the Libraries’ current search tool. And once a user has started down a path, there is very little transparency that helps the user understand what is being searched, nor context related to the results that are returned, or a clear path to help when a dead end is reached. If the Libraries are siloed organizations, then we also need to be bridge builders, to provide transparent paths between those silos for our users. To that end, the development of the user experience needs to be about more than the interface, or a style…but about understanding our user’s needs and the primary audience that this tool will be meant to serve.

Theme activities:

Evaluation and selection of a commercial knowledge-base to support access to the Libraries’ vended content.
Development of a proof-of-concept discovery interface that initially utilizes a “bento style” approach in order to collect user feedback.
Seamless integration with the Libraries delivery services (OhioLINK, the proxy, InterLibrary Loan)
Seamless integration with the Libraries online reference services (no dead ends)

The Library Platform

In order to support our long-term vision around discovery and resource sharing, the Libraries will need to reimagine the Libraries information infrastructure as an abstract set of data services, or Application Programming Interfaces (API).

Theme activities:

Initially target the development of the initial framework needed to support the normalization of data for the development of the discovery interface.

Resource selection

While it would be nice if the Libraries could create an interface that would encompass all Library content (local, hosted, or purchased), the reality is, that we can’t. There will always be some silos that cannot be bridged. The purpose of this stream is to identify the available data silos, and prioritize their integration with the project. Since the integration of each silo will correspond to the need to develop the necessary connectors to interact with the resource, data, or service – the Libraries will want to take an incremental approach to resource selection, considering issues like use, general importance to the teaching and research enterprise, and, maybe most importantly…the primary audience that this service will initially serve.

Theme activities:

Identify the most important local and remote resources for inclusion
Identify value-added services, like spell checking, suggested journals, etc. for targeted development
Develop a prioritized list of data silos for incremental inclusion

Information propagation

While most people in the Libraries will likely want to focus on the development and implementation of a new discovery experience, of equal or greater importance is the deliberate propagation of the Libraries’ content to content specific repositories (like DPLA) and the open web.

Theme activities:

Identify potential streams for targeted data propagation
Actively work to optimize systems/content to support search engine crawling
Actively work to utilize emerging linked data standards like schema.org to enrich web content to support inclusion into search engine’s developing knowledge graphs.