Library Committees

Unified Discovery Advisory Group (UDAG)

Charged by: IT Steering Committee (ITSC) & Council for Research Services and Collections (CRSC)

Sponsors: Lauren Di Monte, Dale Hendrickson, Marty Kurth

Frequency of Meetings: Monthly

Charge:

The Unified Discovery Advisory Group (UDAG) guides and promotes the ongoing operation and development of the unified discovery platform and associated tools for the Yale University Library. Unified discovery allows a single-entry point to search the stand-alone search and discovery services such as Orbis, Morris, Articles+, ArchivesSpace, etc. in use by the Yale Library. The platform and tools are specifically, though not exclusively, designed for and targeted at the Yale audience[1] as they engage in library research. UDAG will act on behalf of all UDAG stakeholders[2] by defining recommendations for feature changes and additions as well as supporting ongoing development, configuration, integration, and support of unified discovery platform and tools at the Yale Library. The group will stay up to date with the unified discovery platforms and tools of others by performing regular environment scans to see how other institutions and other groups at Yale are solving same/similar problems.

The goal of the unified discovery platform is to provide a single search entry to all library resources that can be identified through online discovery. As of June 2020, the platform is branded as Quicksearch. The goal of UDAG is to identify the most pressing needs of the unified discovery platform audience, and to implement them according to the recommendations of stakeholders, AUXR, and the strategic goals of ITSC. Ongoing assessment to identify user needs and to evaluate results are critically important.

UDAG will have membership from and work closely with Yale Library AUXR to ensure that proposed and implemented features are tested for functionality and user experience. The group will also connect with other advisory groups through cross member representation and joint projects.  UDAG members with cross representation responsibilities will be expected to serve as the primary communication channel, from and to, their respective advisory groups as well as their functional units. The Quicksearch Advisory Group (QAG) will be released of its responsibilities and disbanded upon approval of this charge.

Responsibilities:

  • Oversee visioning and strategic planning related to this service domain
  • Provide recommendations and suggest their order of importance related to this service domain, as well as supporting applications and their respective lifecycles, to the sponsors
  • Ensure an appropriate level of engagement with the local client user community
  • Regularly review analytics related to the service domain
  • Determine key performance indicators for the service domain, e.g. simultaneous connections, response time
  • Assist in the development of project charters, work cycle requests, and statements of work
  • Coordinate with Library IT to initiate, execute, monitor, and sign-off on work that has been prioritized and approved by the ITSC and charged by the sponsors
  • Creation of user stories as needed for software development purposes
  • If needed, approve and prioritize maintenance, enhancements, and other changes
  • If needed, provide suggestions to Library IT regarding infrastructure, architecture, and security
  • If needed, create and lead working groups that are within the scope specified in this document
  • Ensure that the proposed and implemented features meet accessibility needs

[1] Audience: The UDAG Audience is the group of people who use the Yale Library’s unified discovery platform to discover library resources pertinent to their research and information needs.  The audience is currently understood to be exemplified in the two Personas previously developed by QAG in consultation with AUXR: the Novice Searcher and the Seasoned Searcher (currently described on this page: https://basecamp.com/1898447/projects/12432010/uploads/46340725?enlarge=380733065#attachment_380733065). These include members of the Yale University community, as well as researchers worldwide seeking to use Yale's collections. 

[2] Stakeholders: The UDAG Stakeholders are the library staff working to make library resources discoverable through a variety of platforms that are, or could be, incorporated into Yale Library’s unified discovery platform. These include  the library's strategic planning groups LEC and ITSC, advisory groups for various discovery systems (e.g., Digital Collections AG, ERDAAG, YAMS, ILSAG, Morris staff), public and technical services, systems, and special collections staff. 


Committee Member: 

Co-Chair, ILSAG Representative
Assessment & User Experience Research

Last modified on August 3, 2023 . Contact Andrew Gray to update.