PLA 2010 Conference: Serials Solutions Adds Database Recommender to Summon

Public Library Association - PLA 2010 - Annual Conference - Portland

By LJ Staff -- Library Journal, 03/22/2010

• Alternative resources recommended
• Some not indexed by Summon

An increasing focus on article-level indexing and relevancy ranking has pushed discovery services toward more and more granularity in search results, delivering article-level results. With a feature called Database Recommender, however, Serials Solutions is taking a small step back that focuses on broader resources such as full databases. 

In addition to regular search results and recommendations offered up by the company's Summon discovery interface, Database Recommender will point to additional resources and databases a user might explore.

"This database discovery function points users to specialized resources that can assist their research, whether they're indexed by Summon or not," said Jane Burke, Serials Solutions senior VP. For example, as the company notes, these recommendations are especially useful for content sources that "don't lend themselves to be indexed by any service—such as dynamic or statistical databases."

Demonstration soon
The added feature is now in production, recommending alternative resources according to keyword triggers based on user-submitted search terms. 

In addition to bolstering Summon's appeal as a starting point for exploratory research, Database Recommender, Summon suggests, will curry favor among librarians as another means to drive additional database usage.

Serials Solutions will be demonstrating the feature at the Public Library Association (PLA) Conference in Portland, OR, March 23-27.