Australia & New Zealand

Libraries are troves of diverse content in many different formats, often with many different systems and platforms supporting access to them. Once you’ve purchased that content, the next step is to make sure that your end users can find and use it all. And, most importantly, how can those end users find and use that content in a way that works for them. 

Discovery Layers are one way to do this. They are a one-stop search platform that allows institutions to bring all their content together and allows end users to search and access that content all from one place. Depending on the ILS that sits behind it, a Discovery Layer can either completely replace or complement a traditional catalogue or OPAC. 

ProQuest and Ex Libris have two Discovery products: Summon and Primo. 

End users can take many different shapes and forms, but there are a number of universal needs they all have. The main advantage of a Discovery Layer is that it is designed to meet those needs, including:

• Providing a seamless experience for finding information. Users want to move between platforms without having to run individual searches and without having to login each time.
• A simple search interface. Google and other search engines have changed the way users search for information. Users want to type in their question and search terms and be given the answers to their queries, immediately, and structured in a way that makes sense.
• Ability to search in content beyond research content. LibGuides, course materials, and other teaching materials can all be ingested into the Discovery Layer to be searched by the end user.
• Start with a broad search and then narrow it down by refining, limiting and filtering.
• An element of exploration via serendipitous discovery and play. There’s really no right or wrong answer in an end user’ pursuit of information. Discovery Layers allow them to play around with search terms, filters and facets to find things they may not have previously considered in their search.

Whether you’re considering taking on a Discovery Layer, or if you have one already, these are a few things you may want to consider and question either your current or future vendor about.

• Content neutrality: After investing money in diverse content, you want to make sure your end users have an equal opportunity to find that content. Does your Discovery Layer preference one vendor over another? Is the company transparent in the way it describes how its relevancy rankings work? Does it allow you as the librarian some flexibility in preferencing certain types of content over others?
• Indexes: How much of the content you’ve purchased is actually indexed in your Discovery Layer? That is, can it search across all the content you want to make available to you end users?
• Frequency of content updates: How frequently the content is updated is a vital point to consider given that a lot of digital content is updated all the time. Journals are released to a publishing schedule; databases and collections have content moving in and out of them all the time. You want your holdings in your Discovery Layer to accurately represent what you’re entitled to access at a point in time.
• Integrations with third party software: For example, can it ingest your LibGuides and course materials to be cross searchable? What about your course readings platforms or your research platforms?
• Data relationships: Does the Discovery Layer display data relationships that the end user can explore? For example citation trails, prompts for related terms.
• Open Access indexing: Is OA content available in the index?