~ Strong Metadata and Subject Heading, Custom Subject Profiles and Evaluation of Multiple Services Prompt Decision to Select EBSCO Discovery Service™ ~

IPSWICH, Mass. — July 26, 2011 — Okanagan College in British Columbia, Canada has chosen EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS) from EBSCO Publishing as its discovery service. After looking at other services, librarians selected EDS for its simple search process, rich metadata and subject headings. EBSCO Discovery Service was also chosen to attract users to the library’s resources and increase the use of those resources while also highlighting the value the library offers through the customization options EDS offers.

After conducting a usability study in 2009, the librarians at Okanagan saw the need for Web-scale discovery and had been looking to provide improved access to their growing array of online and physical resources. The Director of Library Services at Okanagan College, Ross Tyner, says EBSCO Discovery Service will offer students the ability to independently search across multiple databases and resource types simultaneously. “Rather than losing our users to Google, the library required a single place for users to begin their research that was easy to use and which returned reliable, relevant results.”

Okanagan evaluated a number of other discovery services during the decision process. Tyner says the feedback collected during these evaluations also helped librarians make their selection. “EDS allows for more customization than some of the other products on the market. The ability to easily and quickly create features such as custom subject profiles was a clear advantage.”

EBSCO Discovery Service provides users with many options for an enhanced search experience. Result list limiters and facets help to consolidate user refinement actions and provide options for basic and advanced users alike. According to Tyner, these limiters will be a big benefit to users. “A simple search process was essential, but we also wanted to provide users with numerous search limiters. EDS provides many options for limiting search results, giving users control over their search and their results.”

EBSCO Discovery Service offers libraries a variety of customization options. Okanagan College has integrated a chat box, customized the toolbar and the EDS footer and changed the color scheme. Additionally, librarians plan to incorporate custom links and widgets to ensure users can get help when they need it.

Tyner says Okanagan’s experience with EBSCO also played an important role in the school’s decision to implement EDS. “We have a long history of working with EBSCO. Our EBSCO representatives have supported us through database transitions, licensing agreements and the process of implementing this discovery service. We have built a strong relationship with the company, and with its employees, over the years we have been working together.”

EBSCO Discovery Service creates a unified, customized index of an institution’s information resources, and an easy, yet powerful means of accessing all of that content from a single search box-searching made even more powerful because of the quality of metadata and depth and breadth of coverage.

The Base Index for EBSCO Discovery Service forms the foundation upon which each EDS subscribing library builds out its custom collection. Beginning with the Base Index, each institution extends the reach of EDS by adding appropriate resources including its catalog, institutional repositories, EBSCOhost and other databases, and additional content sources to which it subscribes. It is this combination that allows a single, comprehensive, custom solution for discovering the value of any library’s collection.

The EDS Base Index is comprised of metadata from the world’s foremost information providers. At present, the EDS Base Index represents content from approximately 20,000 providers in addition to metadata from another 70,000 book publishers. Although constantly growing, today the EDS Base Index provides metadata for nearly 50,000 magazines & journals, approximately 825,000 CDs & DVDs, nearly six million books, more than 100 million newspaper articles, more than 400,000 conference proceedings and hundreds of thousands of additional information sources from various source-types.

About EBSCO Publishing
EBSCO Publishing is the producer of EBSCOhost®, the world’s premier for-fee online research service, including full-text databases, subject indexes, point-of-care medical reference, historical digital archives, and e-books. The company provides more than 300 databases and nearly 300,000 e-books. Through a library of tens of thousands of full-text journals and magazines from renowned publishers, EBSCO serves the content needs of all researchers (Academic, Medical, K-12, Public Library, Corporate, Government, etc.). EBSCO is also the provider of EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS), which provides each institution with a fast, single search box for its entire collection, offering deeper indexing and more full-text searching of journals and magazines than any other discovery service (www.ebscohost.com/discovery). For more information, visit the EBSCO Publishing Web site at: www.ebscohost.com, or contact: information@ebscohost.com. EBSCO Publishing is a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., one of the largest privately held companies in the United States.

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For more information, please contact:
Kathleen McEvoy
Public Relations Director
(800) 653-2726 ext. 2594
kmcevoy@ebscohost.com