SUNCAT 2015 Survey Report

Sep 282015
 

We’ve just made the report from the latest SUNCAT survey available on our website. The survey was conducted by Jisc in early summer and the feedback we received has been invaluable in helping us to identify any areas which need improvement or development to keep the service relevant to our users’ current requirements.

The vast majority of respondents were Information Professionals from a range to institutions, including HE, FE, the NHS and national libraries.

User affiliation2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The two most popular reasons for using SUNCAT were related to:

  • Locating serials for library users
  • Checking serials’ bibliographic information

Purpose

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Respondents favourite features of the service were SUNCAT’s:

  • Speed and ease of use
  • Accuracy and currency of data provided
  • Aggregation of serials and holdings data
  • Comprehensive coverage
  • Holdings information and display

Over 70% of respondents reported that SUNCAT saved them time:

“I can go to quality records easily, trusting the information there, without wasting time browsing in places like COPAC etc”

 “Enables me to locate locations to apply to for ILLs without needing to check individual library catalogues or use Worldcat which is often unreliable”

 “There are a number of things I can see at a glance from the result page. When upgrading serial records, I can quickly move between several records in the SUNCAT display and the layout is easy to navigate.”

 “It is a more convenient union catalogue to use than copac for searching journals only, as it immediately shows all available holdings data for different institutions on each catalogue record. It also seems to run faster than both copac and Search25 much of the time”

  • 77% reported that the effectiveness of the SUNCAT search was either good or very good
  • 74% reported that with regard to ease of use SUNCAT was either good or very good
  • 74% indicated that their overall satisfaction with the service was either good or very good

Respondents were also asked how likely they would be to recommend SUNCAT and why

“In terms of locating UK serials information it’s unrivalled. Copac is not as comprehensive, Worldcat a lot more unwieldy.”

 “Very useful for checking journals holdings for lots of libraries at once – ideal for sourcing locating for ILLs”

 “As it is based on British libraries’ holdings it often records more obscure and rarer European periodicals, especially in foreign languages, than perhaps WorldCat. It is invaluable as a source of bibliographic information on serials as well as a record of quite detailed library holdings.”

 “It is so useful to have all serials in one catalogue to locate which library has what you want. Also saves a lot of time.”

 “Very clear interface. Comprehensive coverage.”

Finally users were asked for suggestions for improvements to the service. These included:

  • Better deduplication of records for the same title
  • Improved exact title search
  • Improving the visibility of the advanced search and browse options
  • Enabling viewing of older as well as current tables of contents
  • Providing a reset search button to clear previous search terms

The complete list or suggestions and our response to them can be found in the full report. We will be reviewing and evaluating each suggestion to enable us to prioritise our development plans over the next year.

Overall the results of the survey are very positive for SUNCAT. Respondents continue to have a high level of satisfaction with the service, finding it fast and easy to use. The redeveloped search platform has now had the opportunity to become embedded and appears to have been well received. However, the results also highlight a number of areas where improvements could be made. EDINA is aware of and has development plans around some of these and will investigate others as potential future developments.

 

 

 September 28, 2015  Posted by at 3:52 pm News, Uncategorized Tagged with: , , ,  No Responses »

Reminder: user satisfaction survey closes on Friday

May 272015
 

A reminder that the user satisfaction survey will close in a few days on Friday 29th May.

We would be really grateful if you could take a few minutes to give us your feedback as it helps us to identify any issues and forms the primary input for our future development plans.

A huge thank you to all who have responded so far!

 May 27, 2015  Posted by at 9:44 am News Tagged with: ,  No Responses »

User satisfaction survey

May 182015
 

After the launch of the new look service last spring we asked you to give us your opinion of the new interface and features. We thank all of you who responded to this survey, the results have fed back into the service and we are using your comments to inform the continued development of the SUNCAT interface.

You can view a summary of the last survey, with a list of the planned actions resulting from this.

This year we would again appreciate your input to help us improve the service by answering some slightly different questions.

Your feedback is vital in helping us to identify and prioritise areas for further development, so we would be very grateful if you could take a few minutes to complete this survey which will remain open until Friday 29th May.

We would not only appreciate your comments but would also encourage you to circulate the survey details as widely as possible, both to your colleagues and end-users.

Thank you in anticipation!

 May 18, 2015  Posted by at 9:53 am News Tagged with: ,  No Responses »

Report on the Survey of the New Look Service

Aug 112014
 

We’ve just published the report from the survey we conducted on the new look SUNCAT. The survey ran from the end of May to the end of June 2014.

The results of the survey were largely very positive but it did highlight a few areas where we can focus on making improvements.

The vast majority of respondents, 88%, found SUNCAT “Quite Easy” or “Very Easy” to use. Five percent reported that they found SUNCAT “Very Difficult” to use and on further investigation this was revealed to be due to a compatibility problem with older versions of Internet Explorer. However, as soon as we noticed these responses we investigated and we believe that these issues are now resolved, see the blog post: Problems using the new service on the IE8 browser

Further, 91% of respondents indicated that they found the new service better than the original one.

The most popular features on the new SUNCAT with the highest proportion of respondents reporting that they were either “Very useful” or “Quite useful” were:

  • Links to library’s local catalogues in the holdings display (91%)
  • Icons differentiating print and online holdings in the holdings display (90%)
  • Electronic only/non-electronic only format limit on the advanced search page (86%)
  • More search options on the advanced search page (86%)
  • Library information pages (linked to from library name in the holdings display) (82%)
Feature Popularity (Percentage of Respondents Reporting the Feature as Useful or Very Useful)
Links to library’s local catalogues in the holdings display 91
Icons differentiating print and online holdings in the holdings display 90
Electronic only/non-electronic only format limit on the advanced search page 86
More search options on the advanced search page 86
Library information pages (linked to from library name in the holdings display) 82
Results automatically ranked by relevance 77
Post-search filters on left-hand side of the results screen 75
More flexible and granular library and location limits on the basic search page 68
Option to choose how many results to view per page 67
Expanded table of contents (available on more titles) 63
Auto-suggestions on entering search terms 54
Map of all Contributing library locations on the basic search page 26
Newsfeed from the SUNCAT Blog on the basic search page 17

 

Respondents were also asked to comment on their favourite features. The most popular features were the format limiting, format filtering and format icons.

“I really like being able to tell at a glance whether a library has print or online holdings for a particular journal.”

“… is especially useful as it alerts to licensing issues etc. and therefore prevents requests that will fail and saves time in getting information to the library user.”

Second to these were the additional library information pages and the links to local catalogues:

“The improved links through to library information and the links to the local library catalogue is a big improvement.”

“The new library information pages are very helpful as I work in Interlibrary loans and this feature gives me important information very quickly without having to try and locate it on the library’s own website or in the BL’s directory of library codes.”

Followed by the clear design, ease of use and general usefulness of the new service:

“Cleaner, easier to read and navigate”

“much nicer interface – much more obvious in terms of how to use it”

We also used the survey to find out what improvements our users would like to see in SUNCAT so that we can use this information to plan and prioritise our future developments. The following table summarises the suggestions and EDINA’s responses.

Suggested Improvement EDINA Response
Ensure the new service is compatible with older browsers We have investigated this and believe that the necessary changes have now been implemented
Add more libraries We will continue to expand the coverage of the service and are currently in the process of adding new libraries
Improve deduplication We are gathering information about suggested matches on the service and will use this information to inform the development of an improved matching algorithm which should improve deduplication in the long term.
Improve holdings information Unfortunately, we have no control over this as we rely on the holdings information supplied to us by our Contributing Libraries
A bulk upload facility of ISSNs to enable scarcity checks We are in the process of developing a holdings comparison service which should assist with scarcity checking
UKRR libraries limit We are in the process of developing tailored or customised views onto SUNCAT, one of which could be for the UKRR.
Improve relevance ranking We will investigate possible improvements in this area.
Reinstate subject heading browsing This will be made available in an upcoming release
Provide better options for printing holdings dataPrinting results. It would be helpful if you could print a short summary with selected location details without the need to print irrelevant web-page data too. We will investigate possible improvements in this area.
Provide information about policies on ILL provision and licensing agreements We will investigate the possibility of pulling this information from sources such as KB+, while bearing in mind that recent changes to UK Copyright Law might make licensing information less relevant for ILL purposes.
Move the British Library code to appear beside the library name This information is displayed on the Library Information page which can be accessed by clicking on the Library name in the holdings display. We feel that adding this information directly to the holdings display could complicate and confuse the display for general users, but we will keep this request under consideration.
Split up electronic and print holdings or show more clearly We are working to improve how the format filtering works and will consider adding the format limit to the basic search page.

 

The results of the survey are very positive for the new SUNCAT service and indicate it now provides an overall improved platform from which to continue to develop the service further.

Unfortunately there were some initial problems with compatibility with older browsers, which the survey very usefully highlighted. Otherwise the responses to the new features are encouraging, with the vast majority of respondents finding the new service easy to use and an improvement on the original service.

Key features appear as those related to identifying, distinguishing between, limiting to or filtering out particular journal formats. This reflects a high number of users wanting to focus on non-electronic formats due to licence restrictions on providing copies from electronic formats. However, the additional information provided on the library pages and the links to local catalogues also proved popular.

We will give further consideration to each of the suggested improvements and where possible investigate developing these as part of future releases. In some cases the developments are already in the pipeline and the survey provides an additional confirmation of their potential usefulness.

SUNCAT is the Serials Union Catalogue for the UK. Visit the service at http://www.suncat.ac.uk
 August 11, 2014  Posted by at 3:03 pm Developments, News Tagged with: , , , ,  No Responses »

SUNCAT Survey Report 2013

Feb 142013
 

We’ve just published the reportfrom our Benefits and Impact Survey for 2013. The survey was launched back in November and closed at the end of last month.

The report confirms SUNCAT’s primary role as a centralised source of serials information and UK holdings, with 75% of responses stating, either locating serials and articles, or checking bibliographic information, as the primary purposes for using the service.

The key features of the service which are most valued by the respondents include:

  • SUNCAT’s comprehensive coverage
  • Its aggregation and display of serials information and UK holdings
  • The accuracy and currency of the data provided
  • The speed and ease of use of the service

We are very happy to see that the vast majority of respondents find SUNCAT not only easy or very easy to use (86%) but that it also saves them time (89%). Further, 97% indicated they would recommend the service to others.

“It is such a comprehensive reference source it would take me much longer to check information elsewhere.”

“SUNCAT is easy to use and its coverage of UK serial holdings is great.”

“Very trustworthy, fast and comprehensive. Records are to a very high standard.”

“Find Suncat invaluable. If it wasn’t available I would try to source an alternative. Don’t know what though!”

We also used the survey to find out what improvements our users would like to see in SUNCAT so that we can use this information to plan and prioritise our future developments. A number of the suggestions related to the data provided by the SUNCAT Contributing Libraries (CLs), both requesting more detailed holdings information and also providing additional information such as licensing restrictions for electronic serials. While this area is not one EDINA has immediate control over we do take note of these ideas, in the hope that if our CLs start recording and linking such information to their serials records, we would be able to start incorporating this into SUNCAT.

However, with regard to suggested improvements related to the SUNCAT interface we are happy to report that a number of these will be addressed as part of the redevelopment of SUNCAT, announced in November and mentioned in the previous posting. These include:

  • Moving the search functionality to the homepage of the service to integrate the service and website more closely
  • Providing a print/electronic serials limit to the search functionality to enable users to pre-filter their search by format
  • Adding print/electronic icons to the holdings display to enable users to more quickly and easily distinguish between print and electronic holdings

It is also good to know that our users are keen to see the service continue to expand and we will indeed be continuing to add new libraries throughout 2013.

Additional suggestions, described in the report, were also received and we will be investigating the feasibility of these and where possible adding them to a list of requirements for future development work.
SUNCAT is the Serials Union Catalogue for the UK. Visit the service at http://www.suncat.ac.uk or the SUNCAT blog at http://suncatblog.blogspot.com
 February 14, 2013  Posted by at 12:52 pm Developments Tagged with: ,  No Responses »

SUNCAT Benefits and Impact Survey Report

Apr 162012
 

The latest SUNCAT Benefits and Impact Survey Report is now available. The report highlights:

– How the service is being used
– How SUNCAT benefits users
– The current level of satisfaction with the service
– How users would like to see SUNCAT develop

Comments from respondents include:

“There are so many search options which you can use, it just makes my job so much easier!”

“If not for Suncat I would spend a lot of my time trying to locate material”

“More than my work taking longer, the quality of my work (catalogue records) would be lower”

“It’s easy to use, has a broad scope of materials held, and is very simple to use. I recommend it to students as well as library staff.”

For any questions about the report or SUNCAT in general please contact the EDINA helpdesk at edina@ed.ac.uk.

 April 16, 2012  Posted by at 1:47 pm News Tagged with: ,  No Responses »

New SUNCAT User Satisfaction Survey

Oct 262011
 

Last year we asked you about your use of SUNCAT. We thank all of you who responded to this survey, with the results having fed back into the service. This year we are asking some slightly different questions and value any responses we receive so that we can continue to evaluate and develop SUNCAT to meet our users’ needs and expectations. The survey has 10 questions and should take less than 10 minutes to complete.
We would not only appreciate your comments but would also encourage you to circulate the survey details as widely as possible, to library staff and particularly to end-users. Thank you in anticipation.

 October 26, 2011  Posted by at 1:40 pm News Tagged with: ,  No Responses »

SUNCAT Satisfaction Survey 2010-11

Nov 122010
 

SUNCAT is presently carrying out a User Satisfaction Survey. We are very keen to find out your views on the service. The survey consists of 9 questions and takes less than 10 minutes to complete. We are constantly striving to make SUNCAT even better and so your feedback would be very much valued.

SUNCAT is the Serials Union Catalogue for the UK. Visit the service at http://www.suncat.ac.uk or the SUNCAT blog at http://suncatblog.blogspot.com
 November 12, 2010  Posted by at 12:09 pm News Tagged with: ,  No Responses »

Results of user impact & satisfaction survey

May 282009
 

We conducted an impact and satisfaction survey on SUNCAT in April 2009. The majority of the respondents were library or information professionals but there were also responses from a small number of researchers, lecturing staff and postgraduates.

Responses confirmed SUNCAT’s primary purpose as a serials location tool with around two thirds of the respondents using the service to find where specific serials are held in the UK. Other purposes included:

  • Checking if specific titles are held in particular libraries, cities or regions
  • Checking the bibliographic details of serials
  • Using SUNCAT records to improve or create local library serials’ records

Specific examples of usage also highlighted that SUNCAT regularly saved library staff time and money when trying to locate serials.

“SUNCAT is invaluable in helping me locate libraries that hold journals when British Library is unable to satisfy ILL requests. SUNCAT is my first choice for serials location checking. It is easy to use and has exceptional coverage. I use it daily to trace journals and correct reference information. It has speeded my work up tremendously since it’s introduction and I’d be lost without it.”

Desirable improvements or developments for the service which were highlighted included:

  • Addition of more contributing libraries
  • Reduction of duplication on the catalogue
  • Linking from records on SUNCAT to equivalent records on libraries’ local catalogues
  • Linking from SUNCAT records to Table of Contents services, e.g. Zetoc
Potential Web 2.0 developments received little support from the respondents but there was interest in personalisation features. The most popular of these were:
  • Saving records across sessions
  • Saving searches across sessions
  • Location based results based on users’ preference settings.
A number of these improvements are already in development. The team are gradually catching up with adding a backlog of new libraries data to the catalogue and hope to add more new libraries in the near future. Linking SUNCAT records to Table of Contents services is currently in development as part of the Discovery to Delivery project and location-based searching on SUNCAT is also being investigated as part of the JISC IE Personalisation project .

Finally, 92% of respondents indicated their overall level of satisfaction with SUNCAT as “Good” or “Excellent”.

This is excellent news for the SUNCAT service, with high levels of satisfaction for the existing service and positive support for developments in progress. The team realise, however, that there is still much work to be done to try and ameliorate the effects of duplicate records on the catalogue while also adding more new libraries to further improve the coverage and value of the service.

SUNCAT is the Serials Union Catalogue for the UK. Visit the service at http://www.suncat.ac.uk or the SUNCAT blog at http://suncatblog.blogspot.com
 May 28, 2009  Posted by at 3:11 pm News Tagged with: , ,  No Responses »
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