UKSG and Jisc collaborate on new research study

Scholarly communication body UKSG and higher education charity Jisc are inviting tenders for a research study assessing the impact of library discovery technology on electronic content usage in the scholarly information community in the UK.  

The aims/purpose of the study are:

• To evaluate the impact that library discovery technologies (such as link resolvers and web-scale resource discovery services) have on the usage of academic resources;
• To provide evidence to determine if there is a case for (a) investment in discovery technologies by libraries and (b) engagement with library discovery technologies by publishers and others in the academic information supply chain (unless no positive impact is found, in which case to provide evidence to this effect);
• To provide recommendations for actions that libraries, publishers and others in the academic information supply chain should take to engage with such technologies to best support the discovery of resources for teaching, learning and research; and
• To identify additional research, data, discussion, initiatives or other activities required that will support the implementation of the findings of this study.

Ed Pentz, research officer for UKSG, said: 'The use of library discovery technologies has grown enormously over the last couple of years and many libraries have anecdotally reported (and in some cases provided evidence for) significant increases in usage of content as a result of their implementation.  

'However, there still is very little publicly available information evidencing the impact of such technology. The aim is that this research project will give publishers, libraries and other content providers the means to assess the impact of these technologies on usage of their content.'   

The deadline for tenders is 12 noon UK time on Monday 3 June. Bidders may be required to support their tender with an in-person presentation and if so then these will be held on a date in June to be determined. The final work under this contract should be completed by Sunday 6 October.