discovery

Publishers improve searching and retrieval

Several of our ejournal and online publishers have launched improved, redesigned web sites over the past weekend.  I’m not sure why all of a sudden everyone’s doing this, perhaps to prepare for the beginning of the academic year. Wiley’s web site, rechristened Wiley Online Library, has a more intuitive interface with neater layout and more white space.  There’s a new search engine to deliver more relevant results, and more options for receiving up-to-date information. If you already had a personal account on Wiley to receive alerts, your account has been migrated to the new system. Table of Contents, EarlyView  and Accepted Article Alerts have all been migrated with your account. Saved searches and saved search alerts were not transferred and will have to be re-created. Lexis-Nexis weighs in with a new interface as well, with more search options on the home page, easier access to “landmark” court cases, and improved navigation.   The Lexis-Nexis change is significant, and because this is a large database with many different types of materials, it may take some getting used to.  If you don’t see something you are looking for, please let us know. Finally our new Discovery service has some cosmetic changes on the results screen, with shadow boxes on the left for refining results and linked databases higher up on the right.  Because this service is currently under development at the NU Libraries, there will be further changes over the next few weeks.

Our own Discovery channel

In response to user requests for an easy-to-use integrated search option, Northeastern University Libraries are pleased to provide Discovery, a single interface by EBSCOhost that allows several databases and Northeastern’s catalog to be searched at one time. This search tool is a ‘one stop shop’ for users to begin their research. Northeastern will explore the impact of the tool over the course of the academic year. Northeastern University Associate Dean for Scholarly Resources, Amira Aaron, says, “We wanted to provide a more streamlined way for our community to discover information in multiple resources, including our local repositories and open access content. Northeastern students know EBSCOhost and by introducing Discovery we are able to provide additional content and include our catalog, all within a familiar environment which means an easy transition for students, faculty and staff.” Northeastern will work with EBSCO in the next several months to add its digital archive and local digitized content to Discovery, providing even more content from the single search interface – creating a truly custom collection. The ability to pull these additional resources together was another reason for selecting a unified tool. Aaron says, “A unified tool will provide our users with as much content as possible from our discovery service and eliminate multiple silos of information, while improving access to our rich collection of electronic resources.”

Try Our New EBSCO Search and Give Us Your Feedback!

You may be familiar with EBSCOhost, the face of many of the library’s article databases. Now we are trying out a new concept in search: the EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS), and we hope you will help us evaluate it. The hallmarks of EDS are speed and simplicity. EDS provides a starting point for your research, an easy keyword search across multiple databases, including the library catalog, article databases and more, returning a list of results that points to articles from academic journals, magazines, newspapers, books, book chapters, video, music and more. With EDS it is easy to see what sources your results are coming from so that you can continue your search in the individual databases if you wish. The EBSCO Discovery Service is a product in progress, and that is why your input is so important. Features will be enhanced and content added as we work with the vendor to develop the service. Please check back as progress continues on the EDS and leave feedback on this blog, or use the feedback form that is linked on the EDS main search page.