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Institutional discovery environments now serve as central resource databases for researchers in the academic environment. Over the last several decades, there have been numerous discovery layer research inquiries centering primarily on user satisfaction measures of discovery system effectiveness. This study focuses on the creation of a largely automated method for evaluating discovery layer quality, utilizing the bibliographic sources from student research projects. Building on past research, the current study replaces a semiautomated Excel Fuzzy Lookup Add-In process with a fully scripted R-based approach, which employs the stringdist R package and applies the Jaro-Winkler distance metric as the matching evaluator. The researchers consider the error rate incurred by relying solely on an automated matching metric. They also use Open Refine for normalization processes and package the tools together on an OSF site for other institutions to use. Since the R-based approach does not require special processing or time and can be reproduced with minimal effort, it will allow future studies and users of our method to capture larger sample sizes, boosting validity. While the assessment process has been streamlined and shows promise, there remain issues in establishing solid connections between research paper bibliographies and discovery layer use. Subsequent research will focus on creating alternatives to paper titles as search proxies that better resemble genuine information-seeking behavior and comparing undergraduate and graduate student interactions within discovery environments., INTRODUCTION There is no denying the ubiquitous nature and importance of discovery environments (DEs) to academic libraries. And further, 'effective optimization of these search platforms should be one of the [...]

Discovery environments are ubiquitous in academic libraries but studying their effectiveness and use in an academic environment has mostly centered around user satisfaction, experience, and task analysis. This study aims to create a quantitative, reproducible framework to test the relevancy of results and the overall success of Washington State University's discovery environment (Primo by Ex Libris). Within this framework, the authors use bibliographic citations from student research papers submitted as part of a required university class as the proxy for relevancy. In the context of this study, the researchers created a testing model that includes: (1) a process to produce machine-generated keywords from a corpus of research papers to compare against a set of human-created keywords, (2) a machine process to query a discovery environment to produce search result lists to compare against citation lists, and (3) four metrics to measure the comparative success of different search strategies and the relevancy of the results. This framework is used to move beyond a sentiment or task-based analysis to measure if materials cited in student papers appear in the results list of a production discovery environment. While this initial test of the framework produced fewer matches between researcher-generated search results and student bibliography sources than expected, the authors note that faceted searches represent a greater success rate when compared to open-ended searches. Future work will include comparative (A/B) testing of commonly deployed discovery layer configurations and limiters to measure the impact of local decisions on discovery layer efficacy as well as noting where in the results list a citation match occurs., INTRODUCTION Discovery environments are ubiquitous in academic libraries as all but two libraries in the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) report using a discovery environment, and they continue to gain [...]

Washington State University was the first library system of its 39-member consortium to migrate to Primo New User Interface. Following this migration, we conducted a usability study in July 2017 to better understand how our users fared when the new user interface deviated significantly from the classic interface. From this study, we learned that users had little difficulty using basic and advanced search, signing into and out of primo, and navigating their account. In other areas, where the difference between the two interfaces was more pronounced, study participants experienced more difficulty. Finally, we present customizations implemented at Washington State University to the design of the interface to help alleviate the observed issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providing universal access to online information is a worthy ideal for academic institutions. This paper surveys the laws and guidelines that have been enacted to ensure web accessibility for users with disabilities. The author then reviews the literature pertaining to web accessibility and conducts an investigation of the 22 schools listed in the Directory of ALA-Accredited Master's Programs in Library and Information Studies (LIS) as offering a 100% online program of study. Contrary to Schmetzke's study (2001), this study finds that the websites of LIS programs fare better than those of their campus library counterparts. The overall levels of web accessibility remain very low, however. The paper concludes that although researchers are raising the general level of awareness of issues concerning web accessibility, many website designers are not taking the subsequent steps to remedy existing errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]