Exploring Discovery: The Front Door to Your Library’s Licensed and Digitized Content

Date06 November 2017
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/EL-07-2017-0157
Pages1268-1269
Published date06 November 2017
AuthorRaewyn Adams
Subject MatterInformation & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet
Book reviews
Exploring Discovery: The Front Door to Your Librarys Licensed
and Digitized Content
Edited by Kenneth J. Varnum
London
Facet
2016
292 p.
£64.95
Soft cover
ISBN 978-1-78330-096-9
Review DOI 10.1108/EL-07-2017-0157
The concept of discoveryis far from new; it has been around since acquisitions lists and library
catalogues rst appeared. The differencetoday is the sheer amount of published material and the
number of services available to help librarians manage, access and disseminate selected
information to patrons. And today, more than ever, the patrons themselves have access to a
bewildering range of resources. To be comfortable in this fast-changing environment is
challenging and a book such as this is a useful resource to enable librarians to choose at what
level they want or need to engage with the new technology. Each chapter of the book is by a
different author which immediately introduces a variety of styles and approaches. The short
biographies provided are interesting to read before starting their respective chapters.
The books chapters are usefully divided into sections with a common theme. The section on
purchased systems provides a variety of aspects from librariansexperiences with different
commercial vendors; selection and migration processes; and integration into existing library
systems. Most of the libraries are academic, but there is an example of a consortium of public
library, history centre and museum collection. For libraries that wish to take more control of the
end results, often with cost savings in mind, there is a section on customisation in which the
librarians have described their development of base-line products into tailor-made solutions for
their particular needs. The third section on interfaces considers the topic from the users
perspective. It considers the concepts of library discovery and web discovery with the
integration of these into a single search point. Each of these chapters provides a different
approach but the focus is clearly on customer service. I found these chapters the most readable
and would have preferred this section to be rst in the book. Finally, content aggregation, open-
access and metadata are covered in the fourth section. This gives a more systems-focussed
approach to the development and implementation of online discovery services.
Acronyms abound but are reliably spelt out the rst time they occur, making the book a
good source of information to learn just what all of these terms mean: WSD, OPAC, ILS, ERM,
LSP, MARC, OCLC, RFP, SOA, CSS, etc. And that is just the rst chapter. In fact, I found most
of the acronyms reasonably familiar as terms, and this was an opportunity to learn what some
actually stand for. Overall this is a comprehensive source of information for any librarian
working with discovery services. It will seem very technical for less system-oriented readers
EL
35,6
1268
TheElectronic Library
Vol.35 No. 6, 2017
pp. 1268-1271
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0264-0473

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