EBSCO fires a shot across the bow – The Distant Librarian

Received the following email this AM:

Dear EBSCO Customer,
We are pleased to announce EBSCO Discovery Service, which will harvest metadata from internal and external sources,
creating a centralized pre-indexed service of extraordinary size and speed. It will provide libraries with a single,
simple entry point for research and launch users into the entire array of a library’s collection. The new service will
enable users to search a wide-ranging collection of metadata and link quickly to the content to which they have rights.

EBSCO Discovery Service will be the world's highest quality, most comprehensive locally indexed front end discovery tool. Other newly announced discovery tools are marketing products that will harvest content from far fewer partners. For example, one other recently announced service is marketing a system that currently has fewer than 100 content participants listed. Meanwhile, EBSCO Discovery Service already has 410 content participants signed up for “local” access – and this is in addition to the availability of 300+ locally loaded databases via EBSCOhost. The comprehensive collection will include journals from databases, e-journals from publishers, and non-journal content, including but not limited to: WorldCat (130 million books, videos and music CDs), NewsBank, Readex, Alexander Street Press, etc.

In addition to the locally indexed content in EBSCO Discovery Service, libraries will have the ability to search the content of databases on remote services through EBSCOhost Integrated Search, EBSCO’s comprehensive federated search solution.

EBSCO Discovery Service will provide libraries with unprecedented customization options. In
order to create a starting point geared to their users’ needs, libraries will be able to adjust branding components, including: colors, logos, search pages, and even the name of the service itself (e.g., “Springfield University’s Online Resources”).

The planned release dates are as follows:

EBSCOhost Integrated Search: June 2009

EBSCO Discovery Service: December 2009

Emphasis added by me. Reminds me of the truck attack ads I saw a while back where Howie Long is making fun of the other truck 'cause it has features for girly-men. Well, it's not quite the same, but interesting to see one vendor attacking another. Do you think EBSCO is maybe talking about Summon?

And with this type of new coming fast and furious (off to go read about yesterday's OCLC announcement) I've got a new catagory here on the blog: Discovery.

Comments

3 Responses to “EBSCO fires a shot across the bow”

Suzie

April 24, 2009

funny… the Summon service has aggregators, not just journal publishers. Gale alone has about 4,000 publishers… just like EBSCO to take a cheap shot. God I hate that company.
Chad

April 24, 2009

Sounds like a marketing ploy to cause confusion in the market since Summon will be released in summer and EBSCO is talking about end of year at best. Typical of their marketing techniques.
Pamela

April 28, 2009

I picked up on that shot at Serials Solutions as well. Way to muddy the waters Ebsco.