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Behind the Search Box Tools and Techniques for Enhancing Discoverability

Behind the Search Boxspringer.com/discovery

Executive Overview Exponential growth in the availability of information makes finding relevant, peer-reviewed content a key issue for academic researchers and scientists. The search box on the library portal may look similar to that on a search engine, but behind it sophisticated search tech-nology and indexing of comprehensive metadata combine to deliver relevant results from the best in global scientific research. This research can be cited, shared and found time and time again.

This paper looks at what libraries can do to facilitate greater discoverability for end users and the myriad of ways Springer works to enhance discoverability using:

• MARC records

• Link Resolvers and Search Providers

• Search Engine Optimization

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for library portals

• Usability

• Crowd Assisted Products

• The Discoverability Review

• @ Your Library resources for librarians

• Working with Authors and Societies

• Discovery Implementation Guide

IntroductionWhen researchers and students need to find an authoritative chapter or article on their chosen research topic they don’t always know what database to search or the journals that exist, much less who the publisher might be. For this reason, a very wide net across many resources is the rich experience users expect from their library search box. Indexing and selec-tion lie behind this experience, making the library website the most reliable place to begin a research project at any academic level.

As usage becomes standard for assessing the value of a library collection and informing future acquisitions, discoverability is also assuming a new role. If library patrons cannot find an article or ebook, they cannot use it, even if it is the most up-to-date work in its field. Discover-ability drives usage of library resources, allowing usage patterns to more accurately represent the needs of patrons and inform collection management and acquisitions.

It has always been part of the role of the librarian to guide patrons to the resources they need and now good discoverability practices are essential to this aspect of librarianship.

Powerful indexing and search technologies need the support of well-designed library websites with good SEO and usability and librarians who communicate and guide users to resources using all possible means, including social media.

Springer is committed to facilitating discoverability both through engaging with technology and through partnerships with librarians that add to the quality of the end user experience, ensuring patrons have quick, smooth access to electronic resources.

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Driving Discoverability Through Metadata DistributionAs a publisher of thousands of journals and ebooks, part of Springer’s role is to ensure that digital publications are accompanied by metadata that is accurate, comprehensive and up-to-date. Librarians need to see high usage for all the content they provide, and effective metadata distri-bution is one element of driving that usage.

At the Forefront of MARC Records Libraries can now offer patrons access to millions of digital articles, book chapters and other resources without the need for physical space to store these publications. This growth makes the library catalogue more central than ever to the life of the library, even at a time when the cata-loguing librarian appears to be an endangered species . Machine Readable Catalogue (MARC) records are essential for large collections of resources such as SpringerLink.

MARC records play a role in two different types of searching. They can provide more detailed information for search engines and library OPACs looking for a keyword from the title or the summary, and they provide information about where the publication sits within a controlled vocabulary or classification system.

There are two sets of MARC records available for Springer eBooks. Springer’s own MARC records are available from springer.com/marc and can be loaded straight into an Library Management System (LMS), or loaded into a conversion program to integrate with an LMS that needs a different format. Springer´s new comprehensive MARC records implementation guide (also available at springer.com/marc) helps librarians through the process. OCLC-compliant MARC records are also available through the OCLC WorldCat Collection Sets service.

Springer undertakes continuous enhancements to MARC records. The most exciting recent development is the addition of the Table of Contents field to eBook records. Chapter titles often provide unique keywords not found in the book title or other metadata. Adding Table of Contents information to the MARC record will make eBook chapters far more discoverable.

Another recent update is the inclusion of additional subject metadata to augment the Springer subject classes and Library of Congress Subject Headings, conforming to a number of interna-tional controlled vocabularies including:

• Library of Congress Classification

• Dewey Decimal Classification

• BIC/BISAC

Behind the Search Box

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springer.com/discovery Behind the Search Box

The Springer MARC download tool allows selection by subject collection and series, ensuring faster selection of the records a librarian is looking for.

Updates to MARC records apply to all MARC records provided, so there are no legacy records. Springer aims to create the same levels of discoverability for older publications as well as newer ones.

Librarians with an interest in MARC records and cataloguing can get involved in the Springer MARC advisory board to further develop the service. Springer is consulting on new cata-loguing formats, including Resource Description and Access (RDA) and there is close collabo-ration with libraries on topics such as Linked Open Data formats and Semantic Linking for discoverability.

Powering the Library Search Box with Commercial Search SolutionsWhen students choose to begin their project by using a general search engine, they are probably unaware of its limitations when it comes to finding published documents. General search engines tend to favour unscholarly sites and resources that are not suitable for research purposes. Peer-reviewed published resources may be lost in the search results.

A federated search engine provides a common interface from which to search many different publisher platforms and databases. Federated search engines operate as if they are very quickly querying lots of different publishing platforms . In doing this they replicate the action of a user who has the patience and time to fill out the search form on many different publisher sites. Pre-indexed commercial discovery services are different. They ingest large volumes of publisher metadata and full text content to create a massive index that is then used to deliver results to the user. The library can still control the resources that are searched within the pre-index, often including the local catalog of online and print books and the corpus of purchased online content in the results. Federated search does allow the library to manually control the resources that are searched, but since the query is sent in real time out to various platforms, the results can take some time to return. Pre-indexing delivers a faster, controlled search result from selected resources, though it is dependent on the currency of the index used.

An important feature of commercial discovery services for librarians and researchers is searching that quickly delivers highly relevant results from various media forms, interleaving journal articles, book chapters, newspapers, and even video and other formats. If, when using the library search box, users consistently encounter irrelevant results or no results at all, they

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may turn to the general search engines to find an answer. Deploying a pre-indexed commercial discovery service makes the library search box extremely powerful, enabling users to get results quickly that keep within the universe of trusted, high quality, library resources.

One aspect of relevancy is that users should be able to find content that the library has already purchased and it is partly for this reason that search and OpenURL link resolvers often go together. Put simply, the link resolver is the tool that takes the user from the library search results to the full text on a publisher platform such as SpringerLink . The most widely known link resolvers and commercial search tools come from the same suppliers: Serial Solutions , EBSCO , and Ex Libris . The relationship between publishers and search providers relies both on technology - many of the data exchange and indexing processes are automated - and on good relationships. There are, and will always be, changes that need to be manually monitored at the level of individual libraries, consortia and from the publisher side, such as the introduction of a new publisher platform. Springer’s engagement with search providers is led by its metadata team, composed of specialists and staff librarians familiar with data exchange and discovery technology. If a company has developed a tool that clients are enthusiastic to try out, Springer will work as hard as possible to ensure they have what they need. Data from Springer is both comprehensive and free of charge.

As an enthusiastic early adopter, Springer is also involved with creation of industry-wide stan-dards that enable libraries, search providers and publishers to work closely together. The KBART working group, a joint initiative between NISO and UKSG, is developing the accepted standards for link resolvers and Springer is actively involved, with new standards for eBooks expected in 2014.

In addition to these commercial services, Springer works to make metadata distribution as wide as possible, including providing comprehensive metadata to Google Scholar, Google Books and OCLC WorldCat. Google established the Library Links program for Google Scholar (scholar.google.com) that integrates with popular OpenURL-compatible Link Resolvers to guide Scholar users to accessible Springer journal content. In like manner, Google Books (books.google.com) has teamed up with union catalogs like OCLC's Open WorldCat to provide a service called Library Search that guides users to accessible Springer book and eBook resources at their library. The Google services stand out by providing deep indexing of both full text and metadata." Further explanation, if needed, can be found at http://www.google.com/intl/en/scholar/libraries.html. Both services need configuring, so libraries can start by contacting their link resolver vendor and union catalog provider.

Reinventing the Basics With Search Engine Optimization (SEO)Search Engine Optimization is the process of developing websites and publishing platforms using appropriate protocols and technologies so that search engines can accurately assess the topics of the published content. As search engines develop, so best practice evolves to keep up with them. There are now hundreds of factors that search engines take into account when ranking and returning search results.

For a seamless discovery experience researchers need both the library and the publisher to be employing the best SEO. Metadata distribution and MARC records focus on what lies behind the library search experience, but the library patron sees what is in front of it. The library portal is a gateway and good SEO practices make this gateway as wide as possible.

Good SEO practices from publishers are essential so that researchers who have turned to the open web for their search are still presented with up-to-date peer reviewed resources.

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Publisher Side SEOAs an organization providing millions of documents for both academics and industry researchers, Springer’s publishing platforms are designed to integrate with search engines to provide the greatest possible visibility for Springer content. The approach to SEO is discussed closely in conference with Google to confirm that updates will result in improved discover-ability for searchers using the world’s most heavily used search engine.

When indexing articles and resources published by Springer, Google can see the full text, so the search engine doesn’t have to make a judgement of relevancy based solely on title, abstracts, and other metadata. Google is able to draw on every word within the full text of an article or chapter, including chart, table, and image captions, ensuring good recall on even the most unique keywords present in Springer's scholarly resources.

Springer’s own statistics bear out the generally accepted rule that users are happy to use three or four word search phrases in order to cut out broader irrelevant results. In some cases search strings are much, much longer. It’s therefore easy to see why Google access to the full text is so important for discoverability, as article abstracts won’t always contain these ‘long tail’ highly relevant key phrases. With the full text so important for SEO purposes it’s essential that authors understand and can implement good SEO for their articles and abstracts, and this is discussed further in the "Embedding Discoverability into Content" section below.

Once a discovery service has retrieved relevant, accessible results that include items from Springer, the searcher can click through to a landing page which shows them the abstract of the article. Where it can be determined that a user has access to the article, usually through IP range recognition, the full text PDF is then opened in a reader embedded into this page. So from the search engine results page to the full text is only one click. Where a user doesn’t have full access, chapter previews can help them determine if the article or book is one that they need to order. Here deploying the best SEO practices also enhances discoverability by making the article easily accessible by the user.

Additionally, discoverability is not only about the point when a user arrives at Springer. Academic content is inherently interconnected, ideas are based on other ideas, and authors create a body of work that shows their development. Semantic linking, linking between books and journals, related articles and ‘more like this’ are all embedded into SpringerLink to help provide users with insight into the full range of information that is available on the topic of their search. And links between information can also be used by search engines to build up a better understanding of the resources they are crawling and indexing.

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SEO for the library portalPublisher platforms and library portals are very different sites, but some of the core elements of SEO remain the same for both types of site. Reducing the number of clicks to arrive at relevant information provides a faster, more navigable service for both users and search engines. Linking related information, especially on content-rich pages, rather than directory style listings, helps search engines find pages they might otherwise miss. Close engagement between search engine developers and library website developers leads to more visibility and use of information on the site. Successful library sites often aim for simplicity, providing clarity of navigation to the services users are most likely to need such as:

• Library opening hours

• Locations

• Library Guides

• Discovery Service Search Box

The home page for library services should prominently feature the search box that will get users to substantive content on their search topic quickly. Multiple tabbed search boxes for different formats of content – articles, books, DVDs, musical scores – have been commonly used in the past to steer users to traditional catalogs, lists of databases, lists of journals, etc. This approach has been surpassed by discovery services offering access to all these types of content through one search box. Though academic faculty may prefer to start their searches on a specialty index, there is overwhelming evidence that students prefer a single search box. It is vital that the library makes the discovery service search box appear as prominently as possible as this leads the user to access the universe of full text content licensed by the library.

A dynamic site with information that changes on a weekly or monthly basis keeps library content fresh and discoverable for both search engines and users. This can include:

• Regular library news

• Highlighting different content with a title of the week

• Small editorial changes to the copy to use different words, synonyms or just update messages

• Updating metadata whenever there is a change to page content – this can get forgotten once an initial web release is completed

• Using words that patrons will use, including colloquial terms for the institution, its colleges and the library building

• Providing details of content on reading lists from specific lecturers or core reading for courses

In addition to these dynamic elements, static pages can become out-of-date, corrupted or lose information. A periodic review to confirm that all portal pages have metadata often yields surprising omissions – it can be difficult to be thorough when under pressure to release a new site and metadata can occasionally be deleted without administrators noticing. Powerful search technologies and indexes with millions of records don’t remove the need for front-of-house maintenance.

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Usability: Getting Users Where They Need To BeUsability is enormously important for libraries, because assumptions about the way patrons use a site and the problems they may encounter can be incorrect. Without requesting feed-back on unique resources it is impossible to see where the weaknesses are.

Usability studies seek to understand and model how users use websites, in order to remove bottle necks, sidestep confusing navigation and drive users towards the core goal of the website, which for libraries is fast access to relevant research information. A recent analysis of over 50 library usability studies into the labelling of library resources found that students struggled to understand words such as Index, Catalog, Database and Periodical. They needed natural language labelling to help them understand the nature of the pages they would be visiting and make them feel confident about navigating through library sites. This demon-strates that barriers to usability can often be difficult for librarians – who easily understand this language – to anticipate.

Springer’s own usability study found just such an example when launching the Look Inside feature. Look Inside is a SpringerLink platform feature offering a free preview of every article and chapter. It was designed to help users quickly determine whether to invest more time in the full content item. An icon with the words Free Preview was deployed to indicate this service. However, users with full access to download the whole article found the terms confusing. The word Preview made them think they couldn’t access the whole article. A better term was suggested: Look Inside. This term was more familiar to users and gave them a better understanding of the tool. Springer renamed the button immediately.

For mid-size and smaller libraries and librarians who are purchasing from Springer for the first time Springer is committed to providing high quality information that helps the library portal get the most discoverability for purchased titles. For example, Springer account development staff provide custom LibGuides that are tables of links by subject package and year to help librarians point their users to pages where they can browse at a deeper level.

At the suggestion of DeSales University these subject areas in the Springer LibGuides are now split by language, so that English and German publications are kept separate, streamlining their usability. Discoverability is sometimes facilitated by removing information that is irrel-evant for a particular library, perhaps because of a language barrier or because they haven’t purchased certain subject collections or titles.

The dynamic, fluid conversation between Springer and libraries is part of a partnership where usability and discovery can constantly be addressed.

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Social Media In its most simple form engagement with social media offers libraries an opportunity to enhance a researcher’s personal news feed with reminders about library services, new titles and further advice. It also offers users the opportunity to ask questions of the library. Much of a social media is about responding, helping resources become discoverable by highlighting their existence in response to individual queries – in the knowledge that other users and search engine spiders can also use the link provided.

While it’s the library that has a Twitter feed or Facebook page, it’s librarians who will post comments and answer queries. It can help levels of engagement if these are signed with a name – giving patrons the comfort that they’re being dealt with by a person with extensive knowledge of the library. They’re being assisted by a librarian using Facebook – Facebook itself isn’t answering their questions.

Over and above this initial engagement there are innovative ways to use social media to promote library services. The New York Public Library successfully used their Twitter feed to promote blog content. But they made a breakthrough when they used Twitter as a research tool to find out which topics among their blog content were most compelling. Adding the most popular blog posts to their email newsletter saw this traffic jump by 135% . And it’s interesting to note that while they used social media tools as a guide, it was manual analysis and imagination that made the difference.

Social media engagement also allows librarians to reach out to patrons who aren’t coming to the library building. Adding social media identities to welcome packs helps guide students to invaluable library help and advice. For professional researchers, whose role is to disseminate and discuss their research, social media is an important tool. Library involvement in social media spaces allows libraries to stay where researchers are .

Both students and researchers use social media to source the information they need and engage with their library. Social media isn’t primarily about users finding content – it’s about them finding librarians for help and guidance. This help is as important as it’s ever been, even with the development of search and indexing.

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Discoverability From The Crowd Developed from social media popularity, there are now crowd sourced research tools which also facilitate discoverability. Springerreference.com establishes a community of users around a given subject. Invited academics and scientists are able to update references as new ideas and themes emerge. All references and their updates are subject to peer review to maintain the integrity of the information and readers get up to date information on the key themes in their field of study.

Other social tools developed specifically for the research community and providing slightly different services in different subject areas include; Mendeley, MethodSpace, ChemSpider and SciVal Experts.

Discoverability and Unique Institutions – a Partnership ApproachMembers of the Springer team will first log in to SpringerLink as the customer, and verify accessibility to a sampling of articles and chapters, culling out metadata, keywords, abstracts and full text samples. This data is then used to frame searches using the appropriate default search box on the library site. Search results are analyzed for the presence of Springer content, and a final report is provided to the library. The sheer volume of electronic resources licensed by most libraries makes it difficult to keep track of the discovery pathways to all the content, and the depth of indexing supporting the content. Springer tries to help protect the library investment by monitoring the discovery environment. In 2012 Springer sponsored a survey to better understand student and faculty use and acceptance of eBooks on the Wellesley College campus. Springer assisted with the survey design and tools, provided the incentive for students and faculty to take part and helped analyze the results. 57% of the college population participated in the survey, and valuable insights were gained to assist the College in future planning and programs. This kind of close partnership project gives Springer and the library invaluable insight into user preferences.

This detailed, specific approach enables Springer to stay connected to libraries in a mean-ingful way – and these conversations go beyond the traditional relationship between the publisher and acquisitions librarian. Springer is also keen to work with marketing librarians, whose role is to promote library resources, and those involved with information literacy projects, and librarians who deliver departmental or faculty training. All these roles involve of an important element of enhancing discoverability and Springer is always happy to discuss involvement in new projects.

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@ Your LibrarySpringer.com/@yourlibrary is the gateway to collaborative education, training, promotion, and marketing materials from Springer. User guides, datasheets, flyers, web banners and email templates, print promotions and presentations are all available on request to support librarians whose role is to help users discover library resources. Springer account development staff help prepare white papers, implementation and reference guides, webinars, and training sessions, all to help librarians keep up-to-date on the tools they can use to promote visibility and enhance discoverability of licensed resources.

Embedding Discoverability into ContentHelping authors from all disciplines to understand SEO and embed best practice in their articles is essential to ensure that Springer content is discoverable. This partnership helps drive usage: users find the Springer articles they need; librarians can see usage statistics that clearly demon-strate the value of the work; and authors receive more citations, contributing to better Impact Factors. The Author Zone on springer.com includes resources to help authors when writing and preparing their publications, including guides to SEO.

One innovative way that Springer is working with societies and authors to enhance discover-ability is the new PostMe! service. Many learned societies now have a presence on social media networks. The mission of an academic society and the communication tools provided by these networks fit seamlessly together. Through PostMe! Springer provides status updates on new titles and activity that societies can easily disseminate among their membership and social media followers.

This paper has focussed primarily on the discoverability of written articles and books, but the second largest search engine in the world is YouTube. Video is a valuable way of promoting new titles and enhancing their discoverability. For instance, films to accompany the recent title Neuro-science in the 21st Century take people from a YouTube search, to relevant supporting video content, and then on to the book itself .

ConclusionWhen librarians purchase content from Springer they do so because they know it will be of value to the researchers and students at their organization, so it’s essential that access to these resources isn’t restricted by lack of discoverability. This paper has covered the many ways that Springer works to enhance the discoverability of content – by working with authors on the structure of the content itself, distributing essential metadata, working with third party search suppliers, and through close working partnerships with libraries across the world, Springer ensures sthat scholarly communication is disseminated as widely as possible.

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springer.com/discovery Behind the Search Box

A00837 | EB-32 A | Images: Page 1: Natalia Vasina Vladimirovna/iStockphoto; Page 2: Fuse/Getty Images; Page 3: NN/iStockphoto; Page 4: Connel Design/iStockphoto; Page 5: photodeti/iStockphoto; Page 6: Bartłomiej Szewczyk/iStockphoto; Page 7: agafapaperiapunta/iStockphoto; Page 8: Christopher Noble/iStockphoto; Page 9: Artur Marciniec/iStockphoto; Page 10: shironosov/iStockphoto

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