From: Tracy Gardner <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2013 10:40:50 +0000

PRESS RELEASE: 13th December 2013

Impact of Library Discovery Technologies

LISU and UKSG are pleased to announce the publication of the report
for the project investigating the impact of Library Discovery
Technologies on usage of academic content. The research was
commissioned by UKSG with the support of Jisc, and was conducted in
collaboration with the Centre for Information Management (Loughborough
University) and Evidence Base (Birmingham City University). The report
is freely available at http://www.uksg.org/researchstudy

The project sought to establish the extent to which changes in usage
statistics for electronic resources may be attributed to the
introduction of resource discovery tools. The aim was to obtain a
broad overview of the current position with regard to adoption of
Resources Discovery Services, as well as assessing the impact for
individual libraries and resource providers. A review of relevant
literature, a survey of libraries, and case studies of libraries and
of resource providers were supplemented by stakeholder interviews to
provide a rounded picture of the impact of resource discovery services
on libraries. Analysis of data for two years pre- and post-
implementation highlighted not only the immediate impact, but
illustrated the longer term effects on usage statistics.

The findings show that Library Discovery Technologies may influence
positively the usage of academic content in higher education
libraries, most probably for e-books. The impact varies by resource,
and across libraries. Visibility of content is a key motivation for
publishers to engage with RDS. While libraries generally see an
increase in journal downloads following implementation of RDS, the
picture for individual publishers is more mixed. Publishers and
content providers have no direct evidence as to whether their usage
has been affected by RDS; smaller publishers may benefit more from RDS
than bigger publishers. Publishers have concerns that they are not
being well served by RDS providers who are primarily concerned with
their library customers.

The report provide a series of recommendations for libraries,
publishers and content providers, Resource Discovery Services
suppliers and other stakeholders in the information supply chain to
best support the discovery of academic content.


-ENDS-

Please contact:

Claire Creaser, Director, LISU, Loughborough University, LE11 3TU
tel: +44 (0)1509 635 682, fax: +44 (0)1509 635 699, www.lboro.ac.uk/lisu/

Ed Pentz, Executive Director at CrossRef and Research Officer for UKSG
Email: [log in to unmask]