1. Crying Wolf?
Is there a business case for investing
in better resource discovery?
Presentation to RLUK Members
David Kay
on behalf of the
Discovery Management Project, Mimas

2. The Resource Discovery Task Force - 2009
What resource discovery infrastructure would
you build if you could start from scratch?

3. No shortage of
aspirations Better search
Mash-ups and visualisations
In depth topic resources
Improved aggregations
Enrichment of metadata
Collection management
Shared cataloguing
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sharman/4935276033/

4. Discovery Launched - May 2011
Our aim is that Discovery will help to mobilise and energise the
community, engaging stakeholders to create a critical mass of
open and reusable data, and explore what open data makes
possible through real-world exemplars and case studies.
Andy McGregor – JISC Programme Manager
http://discovery.ac.uk

5. Discovery Principles
http://discovery.ac.uk/businesscase/principles/

6. JISC Funded Projects – Phase 1
8 projects
Evenly spread
across Libraries,
Archives and
Museums
Open reusable
metadata
Synthesis
http://discovery.ac.uk/projects/ findings >>>

9. Discovery Phase 2 plans
Exemplars Advocacy More metadata
engagement and
Resources on specific
topics to drive
support
engagement from
content providers Continuing the work of Fund further projects to
the central Discovery release reusable
A call for projects to project and metadata
develop or enhance communications projects
services addressing
specific use cases
Business Case
Develop understanding of the business case at all levels

10. But …
Crying Wolf?
Is there a business case for investing
in better resource discovery?

11. Discovery? … Déjà vu!
• It seems obvious that there would be a self-
evident business case for making learning,
teaching and research resources discoverable.
• However, it is arguable that this is like ‘crying
‘wolf’’.
• Library, archive and museum services have been
at this for time immemorial
• The idea of a further push (better indexing, open
licensing) for a special reason (the evolving
information ecosystem) may be somewhat
unappealing – especially in a period of austerity.

12. Progress has been
made
(with the historic
OPAC problem)
• The new generation of discovery
layer applications has been
widely implemented
– Ebsco Discovery Service,
ExLibris Primo, SS Summon
• We have Copac (&Suncat&…)
• The bigger problem lies beyond
the library threshold
– Other curatorial domains
(archives and museums)
– Teaching and learning assets
• And in the really big picture, it
makes sense to trust Google
– Discovery strongly recommends
that we make our resources
discoverable by Google

14. The enquiry
• Not
– ‘What is the Discovery initiative?’
– ‘What discovery solutions has my library put in place?’
• But first … ‘What are we seeking to achieve in our
library services?
• And Subsequently …
– What role does resource discovery and delivery / access
play?
• How can my library address those requirements
– Are my present discovery services part of the solution?
– Is the Discovery initiative part of the solution?
– Should RLUK be delivering any part of this?

15. Consider the landscape
Our Other library
My Library stuff
library stuff
stuff
‘My’
other
stuff

16. Our Other library
My Library stuff
library stuff
stuff
‘My’
other Our
stuff other
stuff
Other
Stuff

17. Worldcat
Copac
Our Other library
My Library stuff
library stuff
stuff
New
Gen Google
OPAC
‘My’
other Our
stuff other
stuff
Various
Other
JISC
Stuff
Services

18. Worldcat
Copac
Our Other library
My Library stuff
library stuff
stuff
New
Linked Data
Gen Google
OPAC
‘My’
other Our
stuff other
stuff
Various
Other
JISC
Stuff
Services

19. ‘What are we seeking to achieve in our
library services?
• Effectiveness – for our clients in teaching, learning and
research (and other partners)
• Economy – price, duplication, shared services, space
• Efficiency – structures, processes, flexibility, integration
• To which we might add Expression – the expression of
assets in the context of scholarship (not the same as
any tag and expose process), taking account of both
length (longevity) and breadth (asset types)
Resource Discovery is at the heart of each of these

20. What role does
resource discoveryplay?
Let’s not dwell on things we all know well – but let’s recap and
exemplify the obvious
• Economy – Avoiding duplication, Focusing on demand, Sharing
services, Leveraging automation and co-creation
– Shared cataloguing, Collection Management, UKRR, Knowledge Base+
• Efficiency – Student and Researcher Workflows
– Print/Electronic, Cross Domain, One stop discovery, Common access
points (Name, place, subject), Open metadata
• Effectiveness – Finding stuff at the right time
– No to OPAC, Yes to Summon et al AND to Google, possible role of
Recommenders and ‘social’ interactions
• Expression – Barriers between resource types, hidden collections
– RLUK/OCLC effort, Culture Grid, Archives Hub, Aim25
– What about … Repositories, OER, VLE, Research datasets

21. Does anyone care about …
• Unified Resource Management - What does the
ExLibris catchphrase really imply? What resources
do we need to unify?
– Pre-publication
– VLE assets
– OER publications
– Lecture recordings
– Activity data
• And for all of these, is this responsibility personal,
institutional, shared or more generally ‘out there’

22. The boundaries of the library
• This brings us back to a crucial question in current
times – defining the boundaries of our duty of
care or ‘curatorial’ service
– Because they are being eroded
– Because others are failing the mission
– Because there is opportunity
• Distinguish between
– What you are responsible for
– What you do yourselves

24. How can my library address those
requirements?
Making the business case for the ‘Discovery’ principles
• Crying Wolf
– Uncertain - All change / Shift happens / There be monsters
– Unending - We always need to improve our metadata
– Intangible - We need to surface ‘stuff’
• The early discovery projects suggest varied but
nevertheless compelling business cases in four areas
– The Institution
– The service
– Users generally
– Research
[We could add global, which was a given for the projects]

25. Where’s the business case? (1)
Institutional Level - Serving strategic institutional objectives, especially in
support of a more effective learning and more efficient research
infrastructure.
• Fulfilling institutional policy commitment to Open Data provides a strong
basis for this work
• Contributing proactively to wider strategic directions such as
personalization, user co-creation and integrated resource discovery
• Following such as Google, Twitter and Mendeley in opening data to
serendipitous development is low cost and may yield unknown benefits
Practitioner Benefits (Librarians, Archivists, Curators) - More economic and
effective ways of ensuring the collection is well described.
• Making better use of limited professional time by embedding records
improvement in core workflows and / or by automating separately
• Providing more efficient mechanisms to generate more effective indexing
and access points, based on standard and shared authorities for such as
names and places

26. Where’s the business case? (2)
General User Benefits - Making the collection being more discoverable, more
accessible and linked to other relevant knowledge assets.
• Amplifying the impact of special collections by broadening the scope for
discovery, achieving greater utilisation and enabling downstream
discovery of relevant ‘linked’ resources
• Using open metadata to provide a richer user experience and create
opportunities for a variety of interfaces
Researcher Benefits - Contributing to the research ecosystem, within and
beyond the institution.
• Cultivating the international research ecosystem by minimising
duplication of effort and avoiding knowledge silos
• Evolving scholarship by enabling the participation of a wider community
in testing, refining and building on research results
• Surfacing the connections (cross-boundary and unpredictable) required by
interdisciplinary research

27. Terms of use Sounding more relevant?
• Open licensing
• Reasonable terms & conditions
• Explicitly tiered access If so …
Data
• Accessible data models
• Unique identifiers for entities What do
• Reuse authoritative identifiers
• Relationships captured natively senior managers
Interfaces
need to worry about?
• Open APIs
• Well-documented APIs
• Consumable data formats
• Focus on use cases
Service
• Sustainable data
• Reliable infrastructure
• Supported service
• Self-adopted APIs
• Measurement of use

28. Conclusion - Discovery the Project
• Discovery is about positioning and performance
of resource description relative to the 4 Es
• Discovery has so far highlighted just a few of the
things that you can do
– See licensing and technical principles
• RLUK members have been trailblazing
– AIM25 / M25, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Manchester,
Oxford, Southampton, Warwick, York, etc
• We are optimistic of valuable outcomes
– But in the end it is just a project …

29. Conclusion - Discovery the initiative
• Exemplify business and use cases
• Move from manifesto to method
• Identify right-scale - National, Consortium
• Leverage community
• Enable practitioners

30. RLUK – the community
• This is not about catalogues, nor metadata – it’s about
mission
• New models for suppliers, for JISC, for the academy as well
as for customers offer new opportunities
• RLUK has critical capacity - Community, Skills, Relationships
• Possible priorities
1. Liberate Copac
2. Animate Knowledge Base Plus
3. Review scope of current initiatives, such as shared cataloguing
and special collections
4. Assess the wider curatorial landscape, including learning
assets and research data
5. Consider action on identifiers, authorities and access points
6. ‘Understand’ e-books in this context