#discovery systems

By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — February 19, 2026, 17:35 PHST The contemporary concentration of informational power did not originate in the core architecture of the internet. It was applied above it. The foundational protocols that move data across networks remain largely neutral, decentralized, and resilient. Control was introduced later,…

Bibliothekskataloge als Persönliche Assistenten?

Was fehlt in Bibliothekskatalogen, Discovery Systemen und BibliotheksApps? (more…)

Small is always better? What is true for marshmallows on pancakes, is equally true for libraries? At least that’s the opinion stated by Levitin in his book ‘The Organized Mind’ (he is not talking about marshmallows, though): (more…)

While in Chicago at the ALA Annual, I did attend an Ebsco/Innovative breakfast.  I would have liked to describe the scene as "free food causes a stampede of librarians", knowing that there are few things as intimidating as stampeding librarians, but the reality of the scene was more like "I'm going to sleep in this corner until they bring coffee around." 

You know what to expect at an Ebsco breakfast.  A sales pitch, and explanation of new or improved discovery systems, visions of new partnerships, and a general thank you to libraries who use Ebsco-related things.  All of this might not seem important to somebody like me, a SLIS student who isn't even employed (yet....anyone hiring?) in a library.

But there was one speaker that left an impression with me.  I'm really sorry to say that I can't recall her name and I can't readily find it with a casual search (erm...yeah...librarian skill....going to have to work on that.  Listen:  I'm writing this post literally as I'm rolling out of bed.).  

She spoke of how interesting and useful usage statistics are and how sophisticated libraries are getting at coming up with such numbers.  But, in the form of constructive criticism, she leveled that these numbers may seem absolutely meaningless to provosts, other higher administrative members, budget makers, et al, when they are devoid of context.  In fact, such usage statistics can even be counterproductive to whatever causes the library may be interested in.  For example, if you say something wildly interesting like "we were able to create $3 of value for every $1 given to us in the budget", then you're likely to get a response of "wow!  You are efficient!  How much value can you create with 50 cents?"

Institutions can state measurable goals: lower student tuition, increase graduation rates, measure student retention rates, measure the value of journal subscriptions to their usage by students and faculty.

Putting concrete goals of a school or a community first gives "oomph" to usage statistics.  If a library is making a proactive case that "we need more of this" or "we need to get that", then anticipating a "why do you really need that?" requires not a solo statistics devoid of context, but an attachment to the needs of the university overall, to the community overall, and so forth.  Also, providing a myriad of usage statistics as a united front, may be more effective than isolated forms of data, it was suggested.