As the market of scholarly communication continues to evolve, a number of indicators suggest that the unit of information currency is shifting from a primary focus on journal articles to a broader emphasis on key elements of scholarly communication, namely data sets. This article examines and summarizes recent developments that have contributed to this shift in emphasis. The authors will also consider how this shift may affect some of the core functions of the collections and acquisitions processes.
As the market of scholarly communication continues to evolve, a number of indicators suggest that the unit of information currency is shifting from a primary focus on journal articles to a broader emphasis on key elements of scholarly communication, namely data sets. This article examines and summarizes recent developments that have contributed to this shift in emphasis. The authors will also consider how this shift may affect some of the core functions of the collections and acquisitions processes. Serials Review 2007; 33:26-32.
Objectives -To evaluate and compare the results produced by Summon and EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) for the types of searches typically performed by library users at North Carolina State University. Also, to compare the performance of these products to Google Scholar for the same types of searches.Methods -A study was conducted to compare the search performance of two web-scale discovery services: ProQuest's Summon and EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS). The performance of these services was also compared to Google Scholar. A sample of 183 actual user searches, randomly selected from the NCSU Libraries' 2013 Summon search logs, was used for the study. For each query, searches were performed in Summon, EDS, and Google Scholar. The results of known-item searches were compared for retrieval of the known item, and the top ten results of topical searches were compared for the number of relevant results.
Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2015, 10.1 35Results -There was no significant difference in the results between Summon and EDS for either known-item or topical searches. There was also no significant difference between the performance of the two discovery services and Google Scholar for known-item searches. However, Google Scholar outperformed both discovery services for topical searches.Conclusions -There was no significant difference in the relevance of search results between Summon and EDS. Thus, any decision to purchase one of those products over the other should be based upon other considerations (e.g., technical issues, cost, customer service, or user interface).
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.