Search25: Sharing Library Resources to Offer Users More

John Tuck, Director of Library Services, Royal Holloway University of London and Chair of the M25 Consortium of Academic Libraries

42nd LIBER Annual Conference, Munich, June 28th 2013

E-BASS25• M25 Consortium of Academic Libraries established in 1993 (www.m25lib.ac.uk)• Membership: 58 institutions including HEIs and other research organisations across the south and south

east of England• New strategy/mission for 2013-2016 to:

- enhance the skills of library staff and information professionals to enable effective working and performance in a rapidly changing information environment

- deliver new services and tools, enabling library and information staff and users to gain maximum benefit from shared library and information resources

- engage and work collaboratively with other organisations, consortia and bodies to improve the user experience

- bring library and information professionals together, facilitating knowledge-sharing and exchange in order to maximise the potential of each and every individual

- play a key role in advocacy, influencing and lobbying and a leadership role in the promotion, development and implementation of shared services

M25 Consortium: Background

M25: the motorway

© Copyright Ben Gamble and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

M25 Consortium: Governance

• M25 Consortium of Academic Libraries is a charitable company limited by guarantee, registered at Companies House

• Four officers: Chair, Secretary, Treasurer and Chair of cpd25• Steering Group of 14 persons (including officers)• Subscription based• Employs Support Team: 2.6 ftes

E-BASS25• Search25 project was funded by Jisc through its Resource Discovery Programme

• Led by Royal Holloway University of London working with other M25 Consortium partners: Birkbeck College; British Library for Development Studies, University of Sussex; Central School of Speech and Drama; London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

• School of Information, University of Sheffield

• SERO Consulting – commercial partner

• £130,000 project; £107,000 funded by Jisc

• Project duration: November 2011 – July 2012

Search25: How We Got There

Search25: What Is It?

• The new Search25 resource discovery service is available for use at: www.search25.ac.uk. It provides library users with enhanced information on bibliographic data and local holdings plus data on M25 libraries and how to visit them

• Search25 can be described as a virtual union OPAC (online public access catalogue) retrieving records from the individual OPACs of member institutions of the Consortium

• Its users ‘vary from undergraduate and postgraduate students, to academics and research staff, and library professionals, with varying degrees of subject, domain and search expertise, information needs and patterns of search behaviour,’ Paul Clough/Paula Goodale, University of Sheffield, School of Information

Search25: Who Uses It?

• Search25 introduced the concept of “Library Hopping” complete with informational video on YouTube plus supporting posters, bookmarks and travel card holders

• Search25 allows users to locate specific items in an M25 library. Once researchers have found what they need, they can check whether they are eligible to access the library and material through the ‘user options’ section

• Currently the service searches across the catalogues of 40 M25 Consortium libraries

Search25: Screenshot

Search25 Screenshot

E-BASS25• Successful use of multiple open source software products Xerxes & Pazpar2 to create a new resource discovery service of value to students, academics and researchers. This also provides a platform for future service development

• Search25 Licensing Report produced by SERO Consulting Ltd and based on work undertaken to ascertain relevance, potential and appetite for open licensing of bibliographic metadata through the new service

Search25: Open Source/Licensing

E-BASS25• Analysis of user expectations of the new service including use-cases compiled by the University of Sheffield Information School and available as Report on Evaluation of the Search25 Demo System

• Development of an API for M25 library data which has potential for re-use by other services.

- Search25 includes a database with large amounts of information about individual libraries belonging to institutions within the Consortium, the subjects they cover, and about access rights agreements between these institutions

- The API runs on port 5255 of the Search25 website (http://www.search25.ac.uk:5255) and there are currently no restrictions on its use

Search25: Use Cases and API

E-BASS25• As well as delivering a service, the Search25 project has paved the way for many further opportunities, e.g.

- Open Metadata opportunities for the M25 Consortium in terms of advocacy and awareness raising of open metadata

- Shared service opportunities: possible extended service opportunities, e.g. an M25 enabled shared service to host open bibliographic and other relevant metadata for member libraries

Search25: Opportunities

E-BASS25• Search25 Service Development Group set up and reports to the

Consortium’s Steering Group. The role of the Group is to:

- embed Search25 into the Consortium’s work and to recommend longer term development (e.g. new functionality/services) and sustainability

- promote service through M25 Consortium, developing a network of Search25 champions at member institutions

- Evaluate, analyse, provide metrics

• Importance of prioritisation: current focus on:

- increasing the profile of the service

- recruitment of Search25 Champions

- routine maintenance

Development and Prioritization

E-BASS25• Work of Paul Clough/Paula Goodale, University of Sheffield Information School aimed at ‘identifying suitable criteria for evaluating the system once fully implemented, i.e. to define what to evaluate,’ (see Report on Evaluation of the Search25 Demo System

• Use cases scenarios (which can be applied as part of the ongoing evaluation of Search25, as well as informing the positioning and promotion of the service) include:

• A student or other patron contacts the library reference desk because they cannot find a particular item that they need to support their study or work task.

• A librarian has a set of items to catalogue for which additional information is sought, especially subject classifications

• A researcher is visiting London and wants to use one or more libraries which hold collections of interest to their subject area.

Search25: Evaluation

E-BASS25• Search25 API could be merged with overlapping data held by organizations such as SCONUL

• Future cooperation with AIM25, Copac, KB+ could focus on: joined up Discovery and access services; linked data possibilities; collection management potential

• But…how do we sustain, develop and prioritise?

Search25: API

E-BASS25• Data associated with Search25 is mainly ‘small release’ bibliographic data for download and re-use e.g. as citation data for tools such as Refworks, Zotero, etc.

• Even so, a project survey carried out by SERO showed that there was an appetite for awareness raising and endorsement for open licensed metadata

• The Report made several recommendations in this area:

- Advocacy and awareness raising through M25 web pages

- Open licence recommendation

- Exemplar application

- Shared services opportunity review

Search25: Open Data/Licensing

E-BASS25• First impression - WOW!! And yes, that was meant to be in capitals. Well done to the M25 team - I think it looks really good and works well - and I really like the video too. A good balance of form and function!

• I just wanted to say I think the new Search25 site looks splendid – really clean and easy to use – excellent!

• Hi Search25 - like the new look and feel, but have a couple of questions/comments…

• Well done on getting Search25 running at last. It is quite nice and simple in its approach

• This is a great new service which I can see being very well-used at library service points and by students themselves

Search25: Initial Feedback

Search25 Team