The benefits of resource discovery for publishers: a librarian’s view

A core goal of librarians is to maximize usage of the content to which their libraries subscribe. Webscale or resource discovery systems offer a single search box for library users to access subscribed content. This article examines usage data at the University of Huddersfield to show how resource discovery has helped to increase the usage of publisher content, which has been made available to discovery vendors and considers the implications for publishers who are yet to do this. The article concludes that resource discovery systems have effectively levelled the playing field, allowing small to medium sized publishers to make content discoverable to users, and encourages publishers who do not have their content indexed in resource discovery systems to speak to discovery service vendor in order to do so at the earliest opportunity.