SAGE White Paper on Discoverability in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

Discoverability enables scholars to locate the content needed to advance their research and other creative activities. Improved discovery experiences require heightened collaboration among: (1) scholarly publishers and their published authors; (2) search engine developers, database providers, abstracting and indexing services, and academic publishers; (3) electronic resource management and integrated library system vendors, and ; (4) librarians who advance institutional discoverability. To further exploratory cross-sector conversations, SAGE commissioned a White Paper, Improving Discoverability of Scholarly Content in the Twentieth Century: Collaboration Opportunities for Librarians, Publishers, and Vendors, released in January 2012. The research report presents highlights of interviews conducted from July to October 2011 with fourteen value chain experts. The White Paper also summarizes results of peer-reviewed publications and proprietary research studies to further characterize the currently fragmented discovery environment. In conclusions, the authors propose cross-sector conversations among publishers, vendors, and librarians to further visibility and, ultimately, usage of the scholarly corpus on the open Web and within library services.