Surfacing the Academic Long Tail (SALT)
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Transcript of Surfacing the Academic Long Tail (SALT)
Hypothesis…
Library circulation activity data can be
used to support humanities research
by surfacing underused ‘long tail’
library materials through search
And also… how sustainable would an
API-based national shared service
be?
Can such a service support users and
also library workflows such as
collections management?
RLUK, M25, Leeds University, Cambridge University, Sussex
University.
Mimas delivers several key JISC national library &
bibliographic services
Copac
Archives Hub
Zetoc
Journals Usage Stats Portal
--Aggregation of 50+ research & specialist libraries
--50 million records +
--1 million search sessions per month
--Primary use case – locating long tail materials
--John Rylands University Library:
--1.3 million bib records
--600,000 search sessions per month
--23% of records unique (cross checked against
WorldCat)
--40,000 students
10 years of circulation data
Why aren’t we there yet?
» Different use case (simpler)
» Means barriers over extracting right data are lower
» Lessens concerns over data privacy
» Better odds for buy-in?
Building on JISC MOSAIC(a.k.a: going for the low hanging fruit)
In our contexts we need to articulate
value
sustainability
Where’s the BUSINESS CASE?
user demand
benefits
arts & humanities researchers borrow books…
Centrifugal searchers
‘Berry-pickers’ from various trails
Quite isolated and prone to pit-falls
market research reveals these users as…
And increasingly they just don’t ask
librarians…
They ask their tutors and each other
where to look…
Researchers are suspicious about
UGC, especially ratings & reviews, but….
they could see the immediate benefit of
‘tacit’ recommender functions….
What if?
this represented a national aggregation of data
gathered from the usage activity of these
researchers, collected as they worked with a
national aggregation of unique or rare
research collections?
In humanities research it’s
all the way
What can this mean?
» Surfacing and increasing usage of hidden collections ( & demonstrating value)
» Providing new routes to discovery based on use and disciplinary contexts (not traditional classification).
» Powering ‘centrifugal searching’ and discovery through serendipity
» Enabling new, original research – academic excellence…
Next steps…
» Implement in JRUL OPAC
» Test hypothesis with academic users
» Share lessons & consider possible next steps with additional contributors
» Collect feedback from collections managers – useful for collections development & assessment?
» Analyse issues for sustainability
» Target academic researchers looking for long tail items
» Examine relationship between relevance and frequency of borrowing
» Does frequency of borrowing correlate to increased relevancy?
» How should it look?
Relation between key critical texts at the nose
And the other stuff here
Can we make the data work harder to solve other
shared problems?
Issues for sustainability
» Is there a clear-cut case for a national shared service here?
» Data model:
› data out = easy
› data in = not so much
» Licensing & Attribution: collective ownership of a collective pot?
» Is proof of our hypothesis key to sustainability?
A virtuous circle
Thanks for
listening
