Resource discovery Services versus OPAcs in information Searching

In order to learn more about the strengths and weaknesses of Resource Discovery Services (RDSs) and Online Public Access Catalogues (OPACs), we selected three universities from Spain which met the following requirements: 1) they taught Library andInformation Studies, since our expertise in this scientific field would enable us to determine the relevance of the results retrieved, and 2) they had implemented different tools. We conducted several subject and author searches in RDSs and in OPACs, with the overall objective of exploring the efficiency of the search process and the relevance of the results retrieved when using each tool. The specific objectives were: to determine the comprehensiveness of the relevant results retrieved in a parallel search of OPACs and Resource Discovery Services; to analyze these results; to identify the filter functions for selection and how they were organized in RDSs and OPACs; to determine the ease with which the results could be refined and/or the search could be widened by making use of facets, indexes, or advanced search features; and to assess the implementation and usefulness of recommendations of related documents and user opinions/reviews
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