#discovery layers

[librarygirl13]

The following items were added to the bibliography on January 31st, 2018. Note: Items are missing for 2016 and 2017. They will be progressively added. Thanks for your patience! Aculova, T., Hăbăşes…

Good old fashioned bibliography on articles about discovery tools.

[archivistic]

But discovery's external simplicity hides a complex system running in the background, making decisions for our users. And it is the rare user that questions these decisions. As Sherry Turkle (1997) observed, users approach complex systems like search engines at “interface value.” Since the interface is simple, they are content to assume that the underlying mechanism that makes them work is also simple. They are often unaware that complex algorithms help determine what results are shown and what results are excluded. As library search in particular has become simpler, the complex workings of our search tools have, like Google's, receded into a black box. As Tim Sherratt (2016) reminds us “it's not just the simplicity of that single search box, it's our faith that search will just work.”

Matthew Reidsma, Algorithmic Bias in Library Discovery Systems

[stephenfrancoeur]

Pull quote: "By forcing our patrons to wander through a list of specialized tools organized by silo, we were making their search experience difficult. Usually they would wander around in confusion for a while, and if they were lucky, someone would hand them a sword or a piece of string so they could find their way through. We sent everyone from the search of the normal world, to a confusing special realm where the rules of search didn’t apply. We took something that people did every day and made it unfamiliar."

[stephenfrancoeur]

Pull quote: "It certainly looks like a interesting approach and starts to make me wonder about the future of library websites being little more than a single search box."