Library Brand
Recognition
Generating Visibility in the Virtual Age
Jeremy Frumkin, University of Arizona
Oren Beit-Arie, Ex Libris
Pascal Calarco, University of Waterloo
Outline
•
The Problem and the Idea
•
Implementation
•
Results of the Pilot
2010
Academic Libraries face challenges due to
difficult economic times
Branding Electronic Resources
Focus on articles, ebooks
Sticky Visibility
Doesn’t interfere (no added user
steps)
Potential to add user value
Recognition for Delivery
Building recognition for
library services
Oren Beit-Arie
Chief Strategy Officer
Ex Libris Group
focus
o New framework of library services
o Including a comprehensive discovery and
management of scholarly resources (primo, alma)
o Make the common stuff easy, quick, efficient
o Focus local/unique data and processes (e.g.
research, learning)
Don’t get in the way
Invisible facilitator of information
http://www.british-gazette.co.uk/2012/05/09/invisible-men-memoirs-of-an-invisible-man/
Solution Flow
Institutional Proxy
End
User
Content
platform
Proxy
Per-IP or/and Per Target
configuration to forward
requests to Branding Machine
Branding Service machine
No
Branding Machine
PDF?
Branding
© Ex Libris Ltd., 2013
Yes
Forwarding rules
+
Branding ability
Methodology
•
R&D and lab testing
•
Pilot:
•
•
Pilot I – 2 partners
•
Pilot II – 5-10 additional insitutions
Each phase split into three parts
•
Implementation
•
Data gathering
•
User testing
Pilot I partners
Branding Library
E-Journals
@ uWaterloo
Pascal Calarco, Associate University
Librarian, Research & Digital Discovery
Services
Agenda
1. Waterloo: Environment
2. Consortia within Consortia
3. Branding Pilot: Interest & Motivation
4. Branding Pilot: Surprises & Outcomes
5. Branding Pilot: Focus Group Comments
6. Q&A
25
26
At a Glance: University of Waterloo
•Founded 1957
•34,000 students; 15% graduate
•Consistently ranked: most innovative, best overall, leaders of
tomorrow
•87.2% average entering grade; 30% of freshmen above 90%
•Largest and oldest co-operative education program in the world; 94%
2011 placement rate
•Highly ranked programs: Chemistry, Computer Science, Engineering,
Mathematics
•$190.4 million total sponsored research funding, 2011
27
University of Waterloo Library: 2012
• 2012 ARL Investment Index Rank: 98
• 118 total staff; 34 professional staff
• 2.4m volumes
• $16.8M total budget
• 14 staffed service points
• 462k total circulation
• $6.58M “ongoing resources”: 83% of collections budget
• Consortium: Tri-University Group: 77k students, $42m budget
28
Consortium with Consortia: Local
• Tri-University Group (TUG):
• University of Waterloo (ARL, 34,000)
• University of Guelph (ARL; 23,000)
• Wilfrid Laurier University (21,000)
• Harmonized circulation across TUG for physical collections
• Shared Remote storage facility established 1998
• Shared systems: Voyager, Primo
• Waterloo 58% unique titles within TUG
29
Consortium within Consortia: Provincial
• Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) ScholarsPortal:
• All 21 university libraries in Ontario; located at University of Toronto
• hosted e-journal and e-book content owned and preserved on behalf of OCUL
• 500k+ e-books, 3.75M full-text articles, 15.8k full text journals
• GeoPortal – Geospatial information
• RACER – ILL/Document Delivery
• SFX – OpenURL resolver
• Dataverse – Research Data Management
• First and only certified Trusted Digital Repository in Canada (2012)
30
Consortia within Consortia: National
• Canadian Knowledge & Research Network
(CKRN):
• Established 2001, with federal seed funding
• Consortial licensing of core electronic journal and
database packages for all 75 Canadian
universities
• since 2001, estimated cost avoidance of $1.179
billion
31
Project milestones: September –
December 2013
• Design PDF page
• Configure OpenURL resolver
• Configure Proxy service
• Internal testing: Library staff
• Deploy to Library workstations
• User feedback
Usage Statistics
36
37
User feedback: undergraduate &
staff
• Make branding available on public & staff library
workstations in the two main libraries
• URL to survey on branding page
• Problem: very little feedback; decided to cancel
after a few days
• Switched to focus groups for primary user
feedback
38
User Feedback: Focus Groups
• Liaison librarians identified four candidate
departments to work with:
• Electrical Engineering
• Philosophy
• Psychology
• Public Health
• Sought graduate student and faculty from each
department
39
User comments: Positive
“I think the branding initiative is helpful in informing faculty and students
about the available assistance the Library is offering. Otherwise,
faculty and students rarely spend dedicated time learning about the
library.” – Faculty, Electrical & Computer Engineering
“I usually use Google Scholar. Often the role of the library is invisible.
The seamlessness is a bonus, but it is not good that the library's role
is invisible. So yes, the branding page would help with this.” –
Graduate student, Philosophy
“…sometimes we print multiple papers for reading and we might forget
to exclude the front page for printing to save paper. If a cover page
needs to be attached, having it appear as a header would be most
convenient for record keeping.” – Graduate student, Psychology
40
User comments: Negative
“I do not like a cover page being added to any PDF I download. I would
definitely prefer that the information appear as a header or footer on the
first page of the document. Perhaps the "cover" page could be placed at the
end of the document.” – Graduate student, Electrical & Computer
Engineering
“It's in the way. I skim right by. I already know it's a library resource, so it's
redundant information, just in the way. In any case, the phrase "brought to
you by" already appears on many resources. A header or footer would be
less intrusive.” – Graduate student, Philosophy
“A banner would be better - a brightly coloured banner. Best to have it only on
the first page. Otherwise, at least make it possible not to have to print the
branding page. It's inconvenient to have to select a page range in order to
avoid printing the branding page.” – Graduate student, Philosophy
41
Partnering with Ex Libris on a
development project
• It’s a development project – change and the
unexpected will happen; adjust, and prep others for
that
• Opportunity for a library to help design a userfocused service that is of value
• Technical staff gain opportunity to work on something
new and creative
• Make sure the Library and your users get something
in return for your work
42
Surprises and lessons: Technical
• Still a lot of diversity across campus with static &
dynamic IP addresses
• ScholarsPortal preferred source: not branded
• OCUL-hosted OpenURL resolver added more
complexity
• Some variability in EZ Proxy setup re: wildcards
add complexity
43
Summary
• Still testing
• Branding styles (cover page; header; other?)
• Best models for gathering feedback
• …
Thoughts on future work
Add more contextualized services. e.g.:
Citation information
Article recommendations
…
Thank You!