How building a Drupal module to bring Summon's article discovery system into our web site increased article searching, decreased direct database use, and maintained context for the library's patrons.
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Drupal & Summon: Keeping Article Discovery in the Library
1. Drupal & SummonKeeping Article Discovery in the Library Ken Varnum 30 September 2011 LITA National Forum
2. About the Library Site Launched 2 years ago Running on Drupal 6 & Solr Integrates discovery across Catalog (our books, ebooks including HathiTrust) Web content (stuff in Drupal) LibGuides Databases & Journals (metadata level) Articles
3. Where We Were Had Ex Libris’s Metalib federated search Used X-Server (XML interface) to pull results into site Decent results but Slow Inconsistent Did I say slow?
4. What We Did MLibrary signed up with Summon in July 2010 Launched our interface 9/27/2010 As with Summon’s hosted tool, anyone can search through our interface Full text links are OpenURLs UM authentication (off campus) / IP recognition (on campus) to get full text
5. About the Module Developed by Albert Bertram at UM Library Requires Summon API key to run Development time about 10 weeks Had experimented with Summon API for another search project Built code from scratch as a Drupal module
6. What It Does Replicates most functionality of Summon’s hosted site Facets Citations One-click links to full text (where available) 360 Link is resolver Each citation has a permalink for bookmarking/sharing
7. Module Status Available as Drupal sandbox projecthttp://bit.ly/articlediscovery “Real” modules must be reviewed & approved by Drupal gatekeepers Can be slow Iterative process Minimal benefit (for us)
8. Module Contribution Use GIT to download/update Or download manually and install or upgrade Anyone can download & install Requirements Drupal 6 Php5 phpapi client library rovidedby Serials Solutions A couple pear packages Summon API key
11. Why Do It This Way? Information world is a scary place (esp. for undergrads) Provide as few starting points as possible Keep users 'at home' as long as possible Provide access to help as much as possible Keep article discovery, catalog discovery, etc. in one context
12. Being in the Flow Lorcan Dempsey defines “being in the flow” as: the library needs to be in the user environment and not expect the user to find their way to the library environment integration of library resources should not be seen as an end in itself but as a means to better integration with the user environment, with workflow. “In the flow”, 6/24/2005http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/000688.html Image courtesy of M.H Stephens
13. Staying in Our Own Flow We *want* to be where the users are But we need to start be being where we are. We’re not always sure where “there” is Our users’ flow often involves the library, so we also try to add extra value there Provide auxiliary services within the local context Not discourage users from going elsewhere, but providing reasons to stay
14. Flowing Keep discovery in the library. Send users to destination when they’ve found what they want In practice: LibGuide discovery in search & browse Database, journal, & catalog discovery in our site Integrate article discovery into site Subject specialists integrated into search & browse Provide other services around article discovery Opportunity to learn about our user’s needs and behaviors
15. Drawbacks Functionality of Summon’s native interface does not wholly show in API (they have some very talented coders) Data does Need to do extra work on our side to, for example, display Web of Science Citation Counts, or LibGuide author photos API not 100% documented We’re now “help desk” for other libraries
16. Effects Eliminated Ex Libris’ Metalib & SFX Changes to external database usage Database discovery now in-site Allows additional services Favorites Problem reporting & response
20. Failure Reporting Failure reporting Ask for feedback at point of full-text click Capture permalink, on- or off-campus status Ask for symptoms and email for follow-up Questions pass through ask-a-librarian service Rapid updates to our holdings inSummon/360 Link
24. Where Next? Continue to build services around discovery Bring scoped searches to specific courses Launch sharing of frequently used & saved resources among students in a class Continue to study search & browse usage
25. Q&A Ken Varnum Web Systems Manager University of Michigan Library varnum@umich.edu @varnum lib.umich.edu/users/varnum
Hinweis der Redaktion
BackgroundExperience with Summon & DrupalWhat we didWhyImpacts
Sandbox projects can be contributed to anyone; low-use modules optimal for this. Explicitly “experimental”. Lower barrier to sharing
Why do this when the Summon interface is, frankly, pretty good?
Metalib (in blue), ArticlesPlus (in red)
Metalib/ArticlesPlus (in blue), ArticlesPlus (in red)
Article searches look different from catalog & site searches