Centralized indexes for discovery services seems to be the new fad. Beginning with Summon from Serials Solutions and followed by EBSCO Discovery Service, Primo Central from Ex Libris and OCLC’s WorldCat Local, these services depend on massive indexes populated with content representing each component of a library’s collection.
Information Today brought this news to our attention in their article, “NISO Launches Open Discovery Initiative.” This different approach to library collection search can provide advantages and with indexes including data and metadata from the local library, they can represent the materials in the library’s subscriptions to electronic content products.
As these index-based search products become strategic tools in libraries, it is important to identify best practices and develop appropriate standards. The Open Discovery Initiative addresses several areas of interest. Of course we are all about standards. Access Innovations is one of a very small number of companies able to help its clients generate ANSI/ISO/W3C-compliant taxonomies.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in taxonomies, metadata, and semantic enrichment to make your content findable.
