Since March, I’ve been systematically watching almost all the online presentations from the 2024 ER&L conference. They had a Space theme, which led to some punny titles. My favorite was “Meteor users where they are.”

Lauren’s report was more of a general overview. Instead, I’ll offer some focused nuggets:

“Meteor users where they are: Improving database descriptions with plain language” Alex Sundt, Haley Pester, Jason Folkman, Rachel Wishkoski, and Valerie Nelson

This group (which included several students) surveyed students and conducted usability testing on their database descriptions. The stated preferences were mixed, but in the usability test, utility-focused language was most effective. (They defined “utility-focused” as highlighting audiences and use cases such as “for advanced chemistry researchers.”) I’m about to add two new resources to one of my LibGuides, and I’ll take these suggestions to heart, especially as the resources are very similar to each other. One thing I noticed is that the utility-focused descriptions were generally longer than some of the alternatives.

“Microsoft PowerBI for Collection Development and Reporting” David Arredondo

The moral of his project is summed up in one of his slides: “If you build it, they may not come…but it still helped me.” The data normalization he did in Power BI saved him time on his weeding projects, even though none of the liaisons (the intended audience) actually used it.

“Big Deal Cancellations and Influences on Librarian Decision-Making: Sharing Best Practices” Catherine Johnson and Samuel Cassady

They studied what librarians vs. teaching faculty deem important when approaching a cancellation project. One takeaway: Listing in the abstract the five most important journals for one’s research did not help. Focus attention on the potential cuts.

“The More Things Change: Comparing Primo Usability Results Over Time” Stacie Traill

The University of Minnesota conducted usability tests with students using Primo in 2020 and 2023. The most interesting finding in my view was that the FRBRized results (where multiple versions are combined) was confusing to users in both sets of tests. In the comments section, a viewer asked for more information, and she replied:

“Mostly what we’ve seen are users who don’t register “multiple versions” as something that might match what they’re looking for — so they simply ignore those search results even when there’s a clear title match to what they searched. It’s hard to say for sure why this happens, but our best guess is that “multiple versions” simply doesn’t make sense to some users among other resource type terms like book, journal, video, and so on.”

She said in the presentation that they are considering disabling the FRBRized functionality. This result is frustrating to me as FRBRization was touted by some as a great way to make discovery easier. Alas. But notice that the oldest mention of FRBR on this blog (from Leslie in 2007) was casting this very doubt.

“Mission Control for Library Accessibility” Elyssa Gould and Leigh Mosley

The University of Tennessee at Knoxville has someone working full time on e-resource accessibility! This talk inspired a presentation idea for me which has been accepted for Charleston in November. (No spoilers, so stay tuned for my next conference report.)

“2001 changes, an eresource management odyssey: Navigating staffing changes while scaling eresource management support and competencies” Erin Calhoun and Gabrielle Fournier

Lauren wanted me to download some reports these presenters mentioned. If you have access to WFU’s Alma Analytics, you can find them at /shared/Wake Forest University 01WAKE_INST/Reports/E-inventory/UToronto Reports that Lauren Wanted 2024 . The reports show portfolios that were added or deleted recently, and which electronic collections were modified recently.

“The 360 Degree View of Alumni Access: Benefits, Challenges, What to Know” Erin Loree, Gail Murray, Jennifer Zimmer, and Laura Berg

We’ve already tried and stopped providing extra paid access to alumni. I listened to this session so I could hear tips about providing differential access to different patron groups, and thankfully this point came up in the Q & A. One commenter said that you can use a Groups feature in EZProxy. Another person (who was from a medical school) swore by Open Athens.