Search

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to advocate and contribute to a more nuanced and discerning argument when ascribing a democratic role to libraries and activities related to information literacy.Design/methodology/approach The connections between democracy and libraries as well as between citizenship and information literacy are analysed by using Mouffe’s agonistic pluralism. One example is provided by a recent legislative change (the new Swedish Library Act) and the documents preceding it. A second, more detailed example concerns how information literacy may be conceptualised when related to young women’s sexual and reproductive health. Crucial in both examples are the suggestions of routes to travel that support equality and inclusion for all.Findings Within an agonistic approach, democracy concerns equality and interest in making efforts to include the less privileged. The inclusion of a democratic aim, directed towards everyone, for libraries in the new Library Act can be argued to emphasise the political role of libraries. A liberal and a radical understanding of information literacy is elaborated, the latter is advocated. Information literacy is also analysed in a non-essentialist manner, as a description of a learning activity, therefore always value-laden.Originality/value The agonistic reading of two central concepts in library and information studies, namely, libraries and information literacy is fruitful and shows how the discipline may contribute to strengthen democracy in society both within institutions as libraries and in other settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the passage of time things have been evolved from manual to automation and then integrated. The successors and versions of the cataloguing standards has come up with their enhancements alike AACR2 to Resource Description and Access. RDA is being developed to provide a better acceptability with object-oriented database structures. Today card catalogues are totally replaced with OPACs and now discovery interfaces are replacing OPACs. Discovery interfaces are also called next generation catalogs which give an enriched web-based interface used by users including scholars and researchers. It also provides link resolver and an indexing, search and retrieval element. This paper discusses the discovery services and its development in the libraries and provides an overview of how libraries are using and take advantages of advance technology and make their resources easily accessible to the patrons through single search interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IEEE has partnered with discovery service providers and libraries to improve content-related processes and workflows to aid better discoverability and ultimately usage. IEEE has been working with four major discovery service providers to identify content gaps between the IEEE Xplore platform, discovery service indexes, and select library discovery service interfaces. This study will illustrate content gaps, causes, and how IEEE, discovery service providers, and libraries are collaborating to reduce these gaps and adopt best practices for feeding, ingesting, and exposing publisher content in discovery services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The MetaLib Library Portal (MetaLib) is a federated search tool that enables simultaneous searching of multiple electronic resources in a single interface and provides links to resources' native interfaces. Many libraries have already implemented this library portal or various components of it. Prior to launching MetaLib at the University of Florida, the authors conducted a usability study to ensure MetaLib features implemented were appropriate for UF's research community. A total of fifteen faculty researchers and graduate and undergraduate students participated in testing and discussing the product during the spring 2006 semester. This paper illustrates the process used to evaluate MetaLib, which included determining a timeline, developing scenario-based and focus group questions, recruiting participants, and conducting usability tests and focus groups. In addition, the authors describe some of the major findings of the study and the solutions recommended in the formal "Usability Test Report for MetaLib," and provide an analysis of the challenges associated with usability testing of a federated search tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mississippi State University (MSU) Libraries wanted to provide its patrons with a way to simultaneously search multiple databases using one uniform interface; therefore, in the fall 2004 semester, librarians reviewed several federated search programs. The administration decided to purchase Ex Libris' MetaLib® and asked the head of systems administration and several librarians to form a task force to oversee this new metasearch engine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In June 2014, the NISO Open Discovery Initiative (ODI) working group published its best practice recommendations for indexed-based discovery services. Addressing the need for a unified search, these services use an aggregated meta-index and enable users to query a wide range of resources -- both licensed and free -- from multiple providers. Discovery services have largely supplanted the previous generation of metasearch systems and offer superior performance, much wider search scope and no limit on the number of results retrieved by the system. Although these relatively new discovery services have been widely adopted by libraries on a global basis, the ODI recommendations should assist with the further development of this industry. This article provides some background for the ODI, a summary of the published recommendations, and a call to action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of federated search tools for the library market represents a significant step toward the longstanding goal of a common searching interface in the reference environment. These systems aim to provide integrated access to library resources of all types. This article describes and evaluates federated search tools from four vendors. It suggests criteria that may be useful for libraries attempting to compare and contrast this type of access tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]