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Program
ALA Unit/Subunit: LITA
Meeting Type: Program
Cost: Included with full conference registration.
Open/Closed: Open
Web scale discovery (WDS) offers a single point of article-level search across library resources in many different types, formats, and locations. Libraries put a great deal of efforts on customizing the UI (user interface) of their WSD solutions whether it is a third-party vendor product (e.g. Primo, EDS, Summon, etc.) or an open source/home-grown solution (e.g. Blacklight and VuFind). Those efforts are often concentrated on refining the default out-of-the-box UI by adding branding, changing wording, pruning facets, and improving the look and feel of the WDS solution. Clearly, the goal behind those efforts is to make the discovery solution easy to use and people’s information discovery more seamless.
But can the discovery solution also be a means to actively prompt and facilitate critical thinking in a users’ mind at the point of search? How would the UI of such a web scale discovery solution look like? How would such UI differ from most UIs of current library WSD solutions? This program will explore these questions in depth and provide the attendees with an opportunity to rethink what the real goal of WSD is while reviewing the current issues and challenges in implementing and maintaining discovery solutions at libraries.
Bohyun Kim
Chief Technology Officer
University of Rhode Island