1st Edition

Discoverability in Digital Repositories Systems, Perspectives, and User Studies

Edited By Liz Woolcott, Ali Shiri Copyright 2023
    204 Pages 21 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    204 Pages 21 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    While most discoverability evaluation studies in the Library and Information Science field discuss the intersection of discovery layers and library systems, this book looks specifically at digital repositories, examining discoverability from the lenses of system structure, user searches, and external discovery avenues.

    Discoverability, the ease with which information can be found by a user, is the cornerstone of all successful digital information platforms. Yet, most digital repository practitioners and researchers lack a holistic and comprehensive understanding of how and where discoverability happens. This book brings together current understandings of user needs and behaviors and poses them alongside a deeper examination of digital repositories around the theme of discoverability. It examines discoverability in digital repositories from both user and system perspectives by exploring how users access content (including their search patterns and habits, need for digital content, effects of outreach, or integration with Wikipedia and other web-based tools) and how systems support or prevent discoverability through the structure or quality of metadata, system interfaces, exposure to search engines or lack thereof, and integration with library discovery tools.

    Discoverability in Digital Repositories will be particularly useful to digital repository managers, practitioners, and researchers, metadata librarians, systems librarians, and user studies, usability and user experience librarians. Additionally, and perhaps most prominently, this book is composed with the emerging practitioner in mind. Instructors and students in Library and Information Science and Information Management programs will benefit from this book that specifically addresses discoverability in digital repository systems and services.

    Introduction

    Part 1: Digital repository functionality

    Chapter 1: Digital repositories and discoverability: Definitions and typology

    George Macgregor

    Chapter 2: Understanding repository functionality and structure

    Sharon Farnel

    Chapter 3: Understanding the role of metadata in a digital repository

    Jenn Riley

    Chapter 4: Understanding linked data and the potential for enhanced discoverability

    Anna Neatrour, Teresa K. Hebron

    Chapter 5: User search behavior in digital repositories

    Oksana L. Zavalina, Mary Burke

    Part 2: Case studies in visibility and discoverability outside the digital repository

    Chapter 6: Discoverability within the library: Integrated systems and discovery layers

    JoLinda Thompson, Sara Hoover

    Chapter 7: Discoverability beyond the library: Wikipedia

    Elizabeth Joan Kelly

    Chapter 8: Discoverability and search engine visibility of repository platforms

    Danping Dong, Chee Hsien Aaron Tay

    Conclusion

    Biography

    Liz Woolcott is the Head of Cataloging and Metadata Services at Utah State University Libraries in Logan, Utah, USA, and the co-founder of the Library Workflow Exchange.

    Ali Shiri is a Professor in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He teaches courses in the areas of digital libraries and information organization and retrieval, and conducts research on digital libraries and repositories, search user interfaces, user interaction with digital information, learning and data analytics, and more recently Artificial intelligence and Ethics.