As part of the Libraries ongoing incremental improvement of the Discover application, a new addition to the service will be put into production as part of the Thursday, January 30th maintenance window.
New feature: Connect With
Libraries’ IT will release an exciting new feature that we are calling “Connect With…”
One of the unique goals for the Discover application is to have it act as a bridge between our users and the Libraries by connecting our community to the wide range of experts that make up our organization. The Connect With feature promotes the people who can provide guidance related to research needs.
How does it look?
If a user performs a keyword search that closely matches an area of consultation or subject guide associated with a librarian, the Connect With box will appear and display contact information and a link to any related subject guides. In the example below, a user searches for engineering. Information for two of our subject specialists is offered:
An example of Connect With after a user searches for ‘engineering’
The intention is to display only the most relevant information. To that end, if a user performs a keyword search that doesn’t match up with an area of expertise in the library, Connect With will not display.
How do people appear?
The following pieces of data are indexed and then searched producing results:
- Subjects (only applied to Faculty members) i.e. liaison librarian’s subject areas.
- LibGuides Subjects. Subjects that are applied to subject guides.
- Library employees who have the “Public Expert” option checked in their bios.
- All subject librarians will have this option checked by default. They have the ability to uncheck this option.
- Staff members who have areas of consultation may check the “Public Expert” option with supervisor approval.
- Up to five Areas of Consultation added to your bio page.
- Hidden tags for Discover (part of Areas of Consultation section).
- Add tags that represent your areas of expertise and/or subject expertise.
- Do not duplicate what you already have in areas of consultation or your subject terms (if you are a subject librarian). Rather, add terms that may be synonyms or terms you weren’t able to fit into the areas of consultation.
- These tags will not be visible in your Bio. They will be used solely for indexing for discover search capabilities.
The Libraries has always been about more than just its resources. While the book tower is the first thing that a user sees when they walk into Thompson, it is the faculty and the staff, that make the OSU Libraries special.
