Implementing Discovery at the University of North Alabama

Abstract

Collier Library, the main library at the University of North Alabama (UNA), provides the campus community with access to over 150 electronic resources. With so many available options, our students often overlook valuable databases. Analysis of usage statistics had shown that some of our most expensive databases had the highest cost per retrieval. Therefore, finding a product that would encourage users to utilize the full range of available databases became a top priority. In the summer of 2010, the Collier Library staff began to seriously investigate the discovery tool marketplace. We felt that the “single search box” concept of discovery tools and their ability to allow users to seamlessly search multiple databases would be the ideal way to expose students to the range of available databases. We believed that this exposure would increase database use and thus decrease the cost per use. Following discussion and review, the library licensed EBSCO’s Discovery Service (EDS) in late 2010. After months of preparation, setup, and testing, the library launched EDS in spring 2011.

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