Leave the browser behind: Placing discovery within the user's workflow

Authors

  • Ellysa Stern Cahoy Penn State University, University Park, PA

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10221

Keywords:

scholarly workflow, discovery, citation management software, libraries

Abstract

As library discovery and delivery has largely moved online, the scholarly workflow of academic researchers has become increasingly fragmented. Faculty are using a variety of software solutions to find, retrieve, organize, annotate, cite, and share information, including library resources. This article discusses the significance of situating discovery, the act of finding new information, within software central to the research workflow, such as citation management or word processing software. The current status of discovery of library resources within citation management software is outlined, along with expected future developments. Utilizing findings from two Mellon funded studies, it explores the challenges users face in managing their individual scholarly workflows, and recommends optimizations designed to mitigate information loss and increase researcher productivity.

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Author Biography

Ellysa Stern Cahoy, Penn State University, University Park, PA

Ellysa Stern Cahoy is an Education Librarian and an Assistant Director of the Pennsylvania Center for the Book in the Penn State University Libraries, University Park. A former children's librarian and school library media specialist, Ms. Cahoy has published research and presented on information literacy, evidence-based librarianship, library instruction, and personal archiving. In 2014, she was awarded a $440,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to fund the further exploration of faculty's personal scholarly workflow practices and needs (building upon the work of a 2012 grant). Her article (co-authored with Smiljana Antonijevic), “Personal Library Curation: An Ethnographic Study of Scholars Information Practices” received the 2014 Best Article Award from the journal portal: Libraries and the Academy. Ms. Cahoy is a past chair of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Instruction Section and in 2013 received the Instruction Section’s Miriam Dudley Instruction Librarian Award.

Additional Files

Published

2018-02-23

How to Cite

Cahoy, E. S. (2018). Leave the browser behind: Placing discovery within the user’s workflow. LIBER Quarterly: The Journal of the Association of European Research Libraries, 28(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10221

Issue

Section

Articles
Received 2017-08-29
Published 2018-02-23