Integration or Disintegration: Where Is Discovery Headed?

Abstract

This exploratory essay examines current Web-scale discovery service (WSDS) literature to glean directions, integration or disintegration, of resource or information discovery manifested by WSDSs. How effective, intelligent, or smart is searching on this very large yet limited scale? A metadata lens is used to probe quality and WSDS effectiveness as reflected in the literature and associated discovery and metadata initiatives.

KEYWORDS:

• information discovery
• intellectual access
• metadata
• resource discovery
• topical searching
• Web-scale discovery services

Notes

1. Carlin, A., & Donlan, R. (2008). Exactness is sometimes key, but keywords are not exactly exact: Discovery tools and the OPAC, part two. Reference Librarian, 49(1), 93–97. Quote is from the title.

2. Breeding, M. (2012b). Looking forward to the next generation of discovery services. Computers in Libraries, 32(2), 28–31.Quote is from p. 29.

3. Gong, R. (2012). A review of planning and implementing resource discovery tools in academic libraries. Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship, 24(4), 340–341.