UKSG's 'Introduction to Resource Discovery Seminar'

 Written by Bethany O'Donoghue, Systems Assistant at University of Manchester Library

I was lucky to be successful in obtaining a bursary to attend UKSG's 'Introduction to Resource Discovery' online seminar split over Wednesday 8th and Thursday 9th November. I found out about the event from a LIS-Link email and thought it would be useful to attend as it would expand upon my current (admittedly rudimentary) knowledge of Discovery within libraries. In my application I listed my interests for going were to improve my technical skills, learn more about metadata and learn how libraries use Discovery and I can confirm that this seminar met all of these aims and more.

Each day the seminar began with a welcome from Anja Van Hoek (of Amsterdam University Press) and Magaly Bascones (of Gale). Each welcome was very friendly, established the structure of the webinar, provided insight into how to ask the presenters questions, and fostered an environment of enthusiasm towards what we were going to learn.

On The Wednesday the first presentation was ‘The Role of Metadata for Resource Discovery’ by Getaneh Alemu (of Solent University). Getaneh provided insight into both what metadata is and the significance of it by using 'The School of Athens' fresco by Raphael to symbolise the range of information fields relevant to a single resource and how it assists in resource discoverability. He also gave insight into how many stakeholders contribute to metadata creation (e.g. publishers, creators, library staff, customers), how their roles may impact their creation, and the need to stick to standards to create reliable metadata. This presentation was an informative starting point and I can already see the impact it will have on my work when cataloguing special collections resources which may lack MARC records.

The second presentation on Wednesday was 'Discoverability Service at a Publishing House' by Katinka Bratvold (of Brill). Katinka noted that a lot of her work includes collaboration with system vendors and content providers via emails and support tickets. This relationship with content providers assists in increasing resource findability through metadata accuracy which can in-turn reduce the workload of customers. She noted the impacting factors of exchanging metadata (e.g. cost of and required time for creation, range of file types and compatibility) and challenges working with the vendors/providers (e.g. small staff size and capacity, varying levels of technical knowledge, contract comprehension especially with international vendors/providers). Based off of her own experiences, she stressed the importance of using good metadata, an awareness of differences in metadata and why they exist, and how exceptions made in metadata can create issues. This presentation made me appreciate the work of publishers and vendors more and made me realise why metadata styles can vary so widely.

The following day, the first session was delivered by Marshall Breeding (of Library Technology Guides) on the topic of 'Resource Management and Discovery: Impact of AI and Other Technology Trends'. By looking at statistics based on US libraries, he noted that there is a trend for academic and research libraries to spend more than other libraries on integrated library management systems, which can require multiple systems and costs for maintenance. Variations of these LMSs include electronic library management systems which use a knowledge base to provide package selection options and limit the amount of research libraries need to do to find suitable resources. These systems can also manage formats to support resource discoverability, can assist several roles common to libraries (subscriptions, licenses, open access and analytics), and reduce the need to maintain separate systems for e- and print resources. This presentation has made me think about how the development of such systems and the future of AI can assist in library functioning without making roles obsolete.

The final presentation of the seminar was on 'Library eResource Discovery at University of Strathclyde' and was delivered by Fiona Tinto (of University of Strathclyde). Fiona gave useful insight into the work of eResource Discovery management and monitoring within a university library, which includes resource discovery, evaluation, purchasing and maintenance. She discussed the amount of work that goes into maintaining access to online resources, and how tasks are split up within her small team. She stressed the importance of having clear communication channels with content providers and providing regular feedback to ensure that both her library and they are providers are delivering quality content to all users. This presentation gave insight to the amount of work that goes into using and maintaining a discovery layer, and was a nice end to a seminar structured to look at the cycle of discovery layers through ending with the users.

Following this seminar, I look forward to figuring out how to modify this knowledge for my own needs and the needs of my team. In addition, I have learnt a lot about the different career paths within the information and publishing sectors which would utilise these skills. I would strongly recommend attending other UKSG seminars due to the breadth and quality of information each seminar provides. In addition, I would recommend applying for bursaries through the CILIP North West group – the process to apply was quick and straight forward, and Suzanne and Tracy were ready and willing to answer any questions I had about the process.