1. Library technology in
content discovery
Evidence from a large-scale reader survey
Simon Inger, April 2013
@renew_training

2. Library Library Link
Web Pages Server
Researcher
A&I Publisher’s
Article
Aggregator
Student
Search Engine
Publisher Site Aggregated
Librarian Article
Email Alert
Peer Link

3. Library Link
What the
Server
publisher
can count A&I Publisher’s
Article
Search Engine
Publisher Site Aggregated
Article
Email Alert
Peer Link

4. Library Library Link
Web Pages Server
Researcher
A&I Publisher’s
Article
Aggregator
Student
Search Engine
Publisher Site Aggregated
Librarian Article
What the
library can
count

5. Library Library Link
Web Pages Server
Researcher
A&I Publisher’s
Article
Aggregator
Student
Search Engine
Publisher Site Aggregated
Librarian Article
Email Alert
Peer Link

6. Survey on Reader Navigation
• Mission: Gain a measure of the relative
importance of all of these channels to
inform publishers and information buyers
• Survey of Readers following on from 2005
and 2008 studies
• Much larger, with over 19,000
respondents globally
• Over a year in planning, execution and
analysis
• Thanks to all our supporters, studied
multiple subject areas

7. Supporters
• BMJ Group
• CABI
• Cambridge University Press
• IOP Publishing
• Nature Publishing Group
• Palgrave Macmillan
• Publishing Technology
• RSC Publishing
• SAGE
(response rates between 1.7% and 6.4%)

10. Limitations
• It’s a survey
• Survey was only in English
• Survey used invitations from our
supporters – not necessarily completely
representative sample
• Due to data privacy/data protection rules,
all those invited to the survey via email
will be quite highly engaged with the
publisher (“opted in”)

11. What was studied?
• Preference of discovery resources
• Search engine preference
• Device preference
• App use
• Publisher web site features
• all broken down by region, income, job
role, subject area, sector

23. Some take-aways
• Libraries
– Do these figures match your experiences?
– What plans to better reach some subjects?
• Publishers
– Understand which channels readers in your
disciplines utilise to discover your content.
• Library Technology Providers
– What should be done about underperforming
subject areas? More content, better tools?
• Platform Providers
– Supporting all of these discovery channels?

24. Questions?
simon@sic.ox14.com
simon@renewtraining.com

25. Report and Analytical Tool
• Full report contains 90 charts and 123
pages in total
• Analytical tool allows for breakdown of
results by all demographics and subject
area.
– Over 19000 respondents globally
– Over a trillion meaningful chart combinations
– Marketing to libraries, authors, societies
– Assessing aggregator deals and inclusion in
library search tools
• See http://www.renewtraining.com/publications.htm for
details and to order.