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Roz, Erik, Ellen M., Kaeley, Craig, Audra, Rebecca, Kevin, Derrick, Susan and Mary S.attended the ASERL Next Gen Discovery Tools session.

The session was an overview of various next-generation discovery systems (e.g Serials Solutions Summon, WorldCat Local and Ebsco Discovery Services among others). ECU reported on their methodology for evaluating and selecting a product (ultimately Summon). They observed that following the launch they added OAI harvested digital collections resources, used google analytics to measure use (OpenURL clicks was used as a measure), and worked with SerialsSolutions to resolve data mapping issues.

ECU also mentioned a recent nice issue of Library Technology Reports by Jason Vaughan at UNLV that reviews these systems.

NCSU followed with an overview of their Summon experience. Libraries in general seemed to recognize that a main purpose of these sorts of systems is to simplify the initial research process but the NCSU folks discussed some of the concerns of advanced users (IL instruction, depth of search features). NCSU showed the percentage of use of a one search system that grouped results (Articles, Books & Media, Website) into different columns. The results showed that over 40% of the time articles were selected while Books and media were a close second at 36%. The website was used around 2% of the time!

Overall a very informative session.