TOWARD A UNIFIED WEB PRESENCE FOR YOUR LIBRARY Web Manager’s Academy Marshall Breeding Vanderbilt University Library Founder and Publisher, Library Technology Guides October 21, 2012

Therapy for your Library Web site Diagnosing the patient Split personalities? Schizophrenic? Fragmented? Integrated and reasonably healthy? Enlightened?

Disjointed interfaces for information and service delivery? Silos Prevail Books: Library OPAC (ILS module) Articles: Aggregated content products, e-journal collections OpenURL linking services E-journal finding aids (Often managed by link resolver) Subject guides (e.g. Springshare LibGuides) About the Library… Local digital collections ETDs, photos, rich media collections Metasearch engines All offered in separate containers

Search? How many search boxes are offered and what do they do? Online Catalog? Discovery Interface? Web site content? Article databases? Federated Search Do users know what kind of results to expect?

Delivering a consistent and coherent experience Look and Feel Branding / Sub-branding Parent institution – Library – Branches and departments Authentication / single sign-on Integrated Personality / non-schizophrenic Smooth over complexities on the back with more seamless presentation layer

Complex Library Infrastructure Integrated Library System Online Catalog OpenURL Link Resolver Digital Asset Management Systems Institutional Repositories Electronic Theses and Dissertations Electronic Resource Management Institutional / Library Web site Web Content Management System Authentication Services

Thinking about the User Does your library’s Web presence have a presentation layer that manages all aspects of end-user experience or does it simply hand users off from one interface to another as they muddle through your Web site?

Examples: Unified or not? Amazon.com Harvard University Walter Reed Army Hospital Library / / Nashville Public Library Phoenix Public Library

Tools and Techniques Consistent branding and design Shared style sheets among applications Web content management system Integrate functionality of other components through plug-ins, widgets, Web services Avoid direct hand-offs Unified presentation framework Drupal with plug-ins Specialized library tools: BiblioCommons, SOPAC, Axiel Arena, Infor Iguana, etc

Library Web Presence Integrated Library System Library Web site Subject Guides Article, Databases, E-Book collections Public Interfaces : Presentation Layer

Unified Search Model Search: Digital Collections Web site data … User Contributed Content Search Results Discovery Index ILS Data Consolidate d Indexes of Articles

Consolidated index Search Engine Unified Presentation Layer Search: Digital Coll ProQue st EBSCO … JSTOR Other Resourc es New Library Management Model ` API Layer Library Services Platform Learning Managemen t Enterprise Resource Planning Stock Managemen t Self-Check / Automated Return Authenticati on Service Smart Cad / Payment systems Discovery Service

RESOURCE DISCOVERY LAYER PRODUCTS Web Manager’s Academy Marshall Breeding Director for Innovative Technology and Research Vanderbilt University Library Founder and Publisher, Library Technology Guides March 20, 2012

Discovery Products y.pl

Decoupled from ILS

Discovery Interface Search: Digital Collections ProQuest EBSCOhost … MLA Bibliography ABC-CLIO Search Results Real-time query and responses ILS Data Local Index MetaSearch Engine

Differentiation in Discovery Products increasingly specialized between public and academic libraries Public libraries: emphasis on engagement with physical collection Academic libraries: concern for discovery of heterogeneous material types, especially books + articles + digital objects

Discovery from Local to Web-scale Initial products focused on technology AquaBrowser, Endeca, Primo, Encore, VuFind Mostly locally-installed software Current phase focused on pre-populated indexes that aim to deliver Web-scale discovery Summon (Serials Solutions) WorldCat Local (OCLC) EBSCO Discovery Service (EBSCO) Primo Central Encore with Article Integration

Web-scale Discovery Search: Digital Collections ProQuest EBSCOhost … MLA Bibliography ABC-CLIO Search Results Pre-built harvesting and indexing Consolidated Index ILS Data

State-wide Discovery Search: Digital Collections EBSCO ILS Data: Nashville Public … ILS Data: UTK ILS Data: Tinn-Share Search Results Pre-built harvesting and indexing Consolidated Index ILS Data Vanderbilt

Encore Synergy Search: Digital Collections ProQuest … Local Index ILS Data Web Services Local Index Results Remote Search Results EBSCOhost … MLA Bibliography ABC-CLIO

Social Discovery Search: Digital Collections Web site data … User Contributed Content Search Results Local Index ILS Data

Some Examples VuFind Villanova University BiblioCommons Summon Dartmouth College Library

MAKING LIBRARY CONTENT DISCOVERABLE : SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Web Manager’s Academy Marshall Breeding Director for Innovative Technology and Research Vanderbilt University Library Founder and Publisher, Library Technology Guides March 20, 2012

Search Engine Optimization Important to ensure that unique content on your site will be findable by through search engines, especially Google General principles: clear and valuable content Optimize for real users Don’t try to game the system Good coding and metadata important

Coding for findability tag: short and unique descriptive title summary of content, peppered with keywords tags lightly indexed Search engines will attempt to find key content on pages in the absence of meta tags Pages will be punished if meta tags and content are inconsistent

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