Sing a Song of Sixpence: The Birds
We Found in the Web Scale
Discovery Pie
Sarah Fabian, Sara Memmott, Susann deVries
Eastern Michigan University
LOEX 2012
Session Overview
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Background about our acquisition of Summon
Snapshot of Web scale discovery tools
Impact on instructional activities
User feedback
Impact on collections
Discussion & Questions
Our Acquisition of Summon &
A Brief Intro to Web Scale
Discovery Tools
Summon & the EMU Library
• Eastern Michigan University
– Public, regional university
– 22,000 students
• 17,500 undergrad
• 4,500 grad
• Summon
– One year trial started
Summer 2011
– Locally branded as Esearch
Web Scale Discovery Tools
• Lots of content
• Simple search interface
• Relevance ranked results
• Examples:
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Summon (Serials Solutions)
EBSCO Discovery Service
Primo Central (Ex Libris)
WorldCat Local (OCLC)
Impact of Summon on
Instruction Activities
First Year Writing Research
Instruction: Pre-Summon
• First Year Writing Program allows students to
do intensive, multi-modal research on a topic
of interest
– No one-size-fits-all method to cover their needs
– Focus on tools/plethora of options rather than
content and evaluation
– Lots of confusion about *what* they were
finding/how to make sense of it
First Year Writing Research
Instruction: Post-Summon
• Upfront conversations about academic literature
• One place for all students to begin, with an
interface that’s more simple/Google-y
• Less time navigating tools; more time evaluating
sources
• Leads more quickly to high quality &
interdisciplinary sources
• Often seamless connection to full-text of articles
Graduate Instruction Prior to Summon
• Database specific
searching
• Silos of information
• Boolean logic
• “click here, then …”
Graduate Research
Instruction: Pre-Summon
• SPHI 591
– Special Education Hearing Impairments
• HIST 515, 592
– Europe in Early/Late Middle Ages
Upper Level and Graduate Research
Instruction: Post-Summon
Assessment & User Feedback
Summon Assessment Efforts
• Library Instruction Form—added two questions:
– Did you use Esearch? (Y/N)
– Esearch led me to relevant results (Likert scale)
• Student survey
• Faculty survey (including library faculty)
• Collection use data
Student Feedback – Instruction Form
• Instruction Session Evaluation Form
• “Using Esearch led me to resources that were relevant to
my research project”:
Disagree
3%
Strongly
disagree
2%
Unanswered
2%
Neutral
11%
Strongly agree
47%
Agree
35%
“This is the most user-friendly
database I have ever used. It has
made a huge difference in my
academic success.”
“It takes a little while but once
I get the right terminology then
I get lots of good results.”
Student Survey
“…how searching for academic sources
should be…it doesn't make any sense that
scholars need to know specific databases or
journals in which to conduct searches,
especially since we live in an interdisciplinary
world”
“other databases were
harder to use -- but that
is where I found good
articles”
“I still use the other databases when I know pretty well what
I'm looking for. But when I want to explore a new topic,
Esearch is so much more intuitive that I not only find more
relevant sources but also discover unexpected connections
among ideas. It's definitely got me thinking in new ways.”
“(Students) love it! All of the
resources accessible in one
place. Makes using the library
easier and more likely.”
“It is nice to have a
simple interface like this,
but….”
Faculty Survey
“(Students) have indicated that
is is much easier to navigate
and provides them with more
results that are useful in their
research. I have also noticed
my students using stronger
research since the
implementation of Esearch”
“(Students) like it. But
the amount of data that
comes back can take
some work to sort
through.”
Library Faculty Feedback
• Themes from use of
Esearch with students:
– Value ease of use and
searching
– Advantage of not needing
to select a database
– Results are not always
relevant for all topics
Impact on Collection Use
• Full text downloads of online content
increased after Esearch was implemented:
Sept - Dec 2011 Sept - Dec 2010
Full Text
Downloads
324,424
291,778
% Change
11.2%
• Jan – Aug 2011 showed only a 3.3% increase compared to Jan
– Aug 2010
Your Experiences/
Discussion
• What’s a strategy that’s been successful for you in
using a Web scale discovery tool to teach?
OR
• What’s a strategy that you’d like to go back and
try with your teaching in general (whether or not
you have a discovery tool at your institution)?
Discussion
Questions?
Thank you!
• Sarah Fabian, First Year Experience Librarian,
sfabian@emich.edu
• Susann deVries, Education Librarian, sdevries@emich.edu
• Sara Memmott, Social Work and Emerging Technologies
Librarian, smemmott@emich.edu
Image Credits
• Blackbird pie:
http://www.scottgustafson.com/Images/Gallery/Nursery_Rhy
mes/full_images/Blackbirds_in_pie.png
• Blackbird: http://www.nps.gov/prsf/naturescience/brewersblackbird.htm
• Magnifying man: www.istockphoto.com
• Silos:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Silos_in_Indiana.jpg