Today, with the advent of information technology integrated with each other, NTU Library’s has a vast field of information and resources across the access for patrons to discover. NTU Library has made progressive improvement on the library catalogue, showcasing more than 775,000 books in the physical collection. And, this is growing at about 22,000 volumes per year. In addition, strategically align to the model the library’s technology and systems at NTU Library. They has built and maintaining seamless access to retrieve more than 110 databases and journals across her subscription. In addition, they have also created more than 30 subject guides to create viral knowledge awareness into the online community, showcasing, sharing and guides on the collection resources that they have. As each year, the resources in the library grows, discovery relevant desired resource would be a tough task for the patrons. Even though, the library catalogue is still one of the key assets, today. On the other hand, patrons (students and scholars) begin routinely bypass library catalogues, in favour to other discovery tools to search, scan and retrieve their desire information needs. Thus, making catalogue to be decline, with its processes and structures start to face unsustainable and change needs to be swift to bring back the traffic of usage. In addition, for the technology librarians the widespread expansion of digitization projects, ubiquitous e-journals and the raise of e-book added to the pressure. Thus, in this paper, the technology and system librarians shares their experience in implementing a web tool for discovering the resource mining in NTU Library – The Web Discovery Tool. Here, the team shares on the (i) need of web discovery tool, (ii) the choice and administration of the tool, (iii) the strength and capability of the discovery tool (vi) the challenges of the discovery tool and (v) the return of investment in implementation of the discover tool. Along side, sharing out in the attribute of new media built into the tools and helps the patrons’ learning and research in locating resource effectively and efficiently.

1. Nurhazman Abdul Aziz
Librarian, NTU Library (2006 – 2012 Librarianship Tour)
Library Technology & Systems Division
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Discovering the Resource Mining
Experience in your Library

2. Introducing NTU Library
2

3. Introducing NTU Library
3
1988 1994 1999 2010 2012

4. Why The Idea of Discovery Introduce?
4
Ross Mayfield
Url: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ross/50241828/sizes/o/
“ … socialize or interact with each other in the
online world … ”
“… have the potential to promote participatory
networking where both information services and
patrons communicate, collaborate and co-create
content in their areas of interest. “
“… investment in this area will increase libraries’
online popularity and visitorship.”
Because …

5. Information Concierge: The Ideal Model?
Adopted from Flickr User Model . Bryce Glass (2005)
http://soldierant.net/archives/2005/10/flickr_user_mod.html

6. Information Concierge: The Ideal Model
6
“.. libraries could enhance their current role in
supporting their respective user communities and life-long
learning through performing the role of an info-
concierge, or as a network of inter-connected info-
concierges and true collaborators.”
(Foo, Ng, & Soh, 2008).

7. Information Concierge: The Ideal Model
7
“… with this model,
can Librarians seen as a community partner ?”

8. Who are our key Library users?
8
Educating the Net Generation . Oblinger & Oblinger, (2005):
“… the Net Generation
makes up the majority of
patrons in NTU Library and
they have a common
characteristic in terms of
finding and use of
information resources.”

9. Information Searching Behaviour
9
The characteristics of this group gravitate
towards the following traits
(Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005):
- Preference for group activity
- Believe it’s cool to be smart
- Are fascinated by new technologies
- Are focused on grades and performance
- They are most likely to consult each other
- Are busy with extracurricular activities

10. Behind the story …
10

11. Behind the story …
11

12. Behind the story …
12

13. Behind the story …
13

14. The Idea of Web Discovery Kicks In
14
Whatisthereal
IDEA

15. The Idea of Web Discovery Kicks In
15
Whatisthereal
IDEADISCOVERY

16. The Idea of Web Discovery Kicks In
16
WEB
DISCOVERY

17. The Idea of Web Discovery Kicks In
17
Content
These services harvest content from local and remotely hosted
repositories and create a vastly comprehensive centralized
index—to the article level—based on a normalized schema
across content types, well suited for rapid search and retrieval of
results ranked by relevancy. Con-tent is enabled through the
harvesting of local library resources, combined with brokered
agreements with publishers and aggregators allowing access to
their metadata and/or full text content for indexing purposes.
Discovery
These services have a single search box providing a Google-
like search experience (as well as advanced searching
capabilities).
Delivery
These services provide quick results ranked by relevancy in a
modern interface offering functionality and design cues intuitive to
and expected by today’s users (such as faceted navigation to drill
down to more specific results).
Flexibility
These services are agnostic to underlying systems, whether
hosted by the library or hosted remotely by content providers.
These services are open compared to traditional library systems
and allow library greater latitude to customize the services and
make the service its own.
1.
2.
3.
4.

18. The Evolution of Communication
18

19. The Main Core of Communications
19
Library Catalogue is the main
core of communication
Web search is our
communication presentation
layer
Discovery Needs to
takes in place
Supporting system to the
communication

20. But, we have Federated Search
20
PATRONS
Librarians

21. What is Federation Search
21
(1) transforming a query and broadcasting
it to a group of disparate databases or
other web resources, with the appropriate
syntax,
(2) merging the results collected from the
databases,
(3) presenting them in a succinct and
unified format with minimal duplication, and
(4) providing a means, performed either
automatically or by the portal user, to sort
the merged result set.

22. What about Web Discovery, then
22
A discovery service is a search
interface to pre-indexed meta data
and/or full text documents.
Discovery services differ from
federated search applications in that
discovery services don’t search live
sources.
By searching pre-indexed data
discovery services return search
results very quickly.
Discovery services are touted as an
evolution beyond federated search and
in some ways they are.
Some discovery services either
provide integration with federated
search or provide an API for others to
do the integration

23. What about Web Discovery, then
23
At this stage, even they are able to search
certain databases Web Discovery is still in the
process of development and refining, the
platform is a suitable evolution for the Next-Gen
Library Catalogue.
This is because we are only able to search
metadata from a pre-index data and not live
fulltext searching.
Never less, the cumulative traffic has increased
access tremendously to the over visitorship of
the digital library.
The reason of ease of use and friendly user
interface.

24. Web-scale discovery (WSD) Concept
24
The Ins and Outs of Evaluating Web-Scale
Discovery Services
by Athena Hoeppner
(1) the web-scale discovery platform:
- Single search across the central index
- Fast response time
- Relevancy-ranked results list
- Facets, sort, and other tools for refining and using the results
- Connections to full text via direct links and OpenURL
- End-user accounts and features
(2) the central index may include these
elements such as,
(i) library supplied data,
(ii) open access and public domain data,
(iii) publisher metadata and full text,
(iv) web service discovery-licensed material and (v) mutually
licensed.
(3) the discovery layers such as,
(i) branding and customisation, (ii) searching, (iii) advance discovery, (iv) relevancy and
refinement, (v) end-user features and web 2.0 and lastly (vi) enhancement.

25. Learning Experiences
25
Discovery Layer
Relevancy Ranking:
- Does the relevancy expose the kind of material
important to the users?
Search/Discovery Tools:
- Do the basic/advanced options, facets, and limiters
enable the users to find the content they seek?
End-User Features and Controls:
- Do the folders/lists, tagging, exporting citations, and
other features support user interaction with the
content?
Interface customizations:
- Can librarian control the branding and layout, include
widgets, and use APIs?
Results Enrichment:
- Is it possible to enhance the results with book jackets,
external information, and recommenders?
Overall Usability:
- Do users understand the interface and make good use of
the options?

26. Learning Experiences
26
Central Index
Mutually Licensed Content:
- Does the central index help expose the rich
metadata from the current subscriptions?
Item Types:
- Does the central index include item types
important to the library?
- Are the results full of item types that user do
not want?
- Is content from specialized indexing - -
searchable?
Full-Text Indexing:
- Does the central index include the backfiles
for journals and have searchable full text for a
variety of sources?
Discovery Layer
Relevancy Ranking:
- Does the relevancy expose the kind of material
important to the users?
Search/Discovery Tools:
- Do the basic/advanced options, facets, and limiters
enable the users to find the content they seek?
End-User Features and Controls:
- Do the folders/lists, tagging, exporting citations, and
other features support user interaction with the
content?
Interface customizations:
- Can librarian control the branding and layout, include
widgets, and use APIs?
Results Enrichment:
- Is it possible to enhance the results with book jackets,
external information, and recommenders?
Overall Usability:
- Do users understand the interface and make good use of
the options?

27. The relook into the technology plan
27

28. Take away note
28
(i) the need of web discovery tool,
(ii) the choice and administration of the tool,
(iii) the strength and capability of the discovery tool
(vi) the challenges of the discovery tool and
(v) the return of investment in implementation of the
discover tool.

29. Nanyang Technological University Library
29
Thank you
Do visit us @ www.ntu.edu.sg/library/