IPSWICH, Mass. — December 1, 2014 — Concordia University Texas has chosen EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS) from EBSCO Information Services to improve discovery of library collections. As a small university with a diverse group of students, the staff at the library of Concordia University Texas chose EDS for its intuitive search experience and state-of-the-art technology to provide quality and relevant results to their students’ queries.
Concordia University Texas Library did not have a discovery service when Director of Library Services, Mikail McIntosh-Doty started working there three years ago. Discovery services were a new idea to her back then and she thought it was only an option for “big libraries.” However, McIntosh-Doty realized that in addition to being an ideal solution for the world’s largest libraries, EBSCO Discovery Service would also fit the needs of its small and diverse student body by providing an easy-to-use search as well as features that deliver quality results. “EDS provides the ‘best match’ results when a student does a query, and these rich results help students select the best sources. We rely on relevancy ranking in EDS as well as using many of the features including discipline and scholarly peer-reviewed limiters, persistent links and citation format.”
EDS has also proven instrumental in reaching out to students not on campus. McIntosh-Doty says “Technology is the only way we can move students — from all across the state and beyond — from where they are to what they need. EDS helps us do that. Over a third of our students – those at centers across the state or in online programs – never enter our building, so having an almost “intuitive” way to get good resources was very important.”
EDS has been growing in popularity with students. In fact, according to McIntosh-Doty, students decided to re-name EDS to better reflect their experience with the discovery solution. “Students renamed our EDS ‘Jump Start’ and that is exactly what it does. EDS gives this diverse community a quick and effective way to begin their search for resources.”
The library has been observing a consistent increase in usage in library collections and is pleased that EDS enables them to see what resources are being used. In the near future, they hope to get Curriculum Builder LMS EDS Plug In up and running to create and manage course reading lists.
EBSCO Discovery Service creates a unified, customized index of an institution’s information resources, and an easy, yet powerful means of accessing all of that content from a single search box-searching made even more powerful because of the quality of its relevance and value ranking technology.
About EBSCO Information Services
EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) is the leading discovery service provider for libraries worldwide with more than 6,000 discovery customers in over 100 countries. EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS) provides each institution with a comprehensive, single search box for its entire collection, offering unparalleled relevance ranking quality and extensive customization. EBSCO is also the preeminent provider of online research content for libraries, including hundreds of research databases, historical archives, point-of-care medical reference, and corporate learning tools serving millions of end users at tens of thousands of institutions. EBSCO is the leading provider of electronic journals & books for libraries, with subscription management for more than 360,000 serials, including more than 57,000 e-journals, as well as online access to more than 650,000 e-books. For more information, visit the EBSCO website at: www.ebsco.com. EBSCO Information Services is a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., a family owned company since 1944.
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For more information, please contact:
Kathleen McEvoy
Vice President of Communications
(800) 653-2726 ext. 2594
kmcevoy@ebsco.com
