2018 Charleston Library Conference

The demand for unfettered access to full content continues to grow. Modern researchers are accustomed to moving from a results list to the full web page or content with a single click. Library discovery and delivery systems and publisher platforms fail to deliver the ease of access that users expect. Once users successfully clear hurdles created by proxy-based authentication and unfamiliar library discovery interfaces they face a variety of Full Text link options that provide inconsistent results, may require a bit of hunting and several clicks, and, with luck, arrive at a full PDF of an article.

Improving consistency and reducing the number of clicks are essential steps to improve user experience. The presenters discuss three approaches to get users from a result to full text quickly and with enhanced functionality. Athena Hoeppner will explore techniques to optimize link resolver functionality to deliver one-click access to full text and to highlight relevant library services. Ben Kaube and Jason Chabak will talk about Kopernio and Access Anywhere, two next generation tools for one-click PDF access, organization, and storage.

All three approaches will improve article access UX. Kopernio and Access Anywhere bring additional, relatively new, capabilities to the table, offering researchers greater control and stability for their selected PDFs and providing new usage analytics to libraries. The audience will gain an understanding of the capabilities and limitations of the three approaches and some insights into how they would benefit their own libraries and researchers.