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Discovery: Library search made simple.

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About Discovery

Overview

Discovery is a new, simpler way to find books, journals, Web pages, multimedia, Colorado State University scholarly works and other items at CSU Libraries and online.

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Current features

Possible future features

  • Add data from other sources
  • Add personalization and social features
    • Login for customization, saved searches, ratings, comments
    • Integrate reviews and other content from external sources
  • Improve interface and navigation
    • Cleaner, simpler page layout (e.g. top navigation bar, facets, labels)
    • Additional facets (new items, availability, publisher, date, era, series)
    • iTunes-like browsing

News

11-2011
  • Default sort of search results changed to Relevance+Date
09-2011
  • My Profile and My Favorites temporarily unavailable for authentication upgrade
11-2010
  • Improved author search
  • Linked search result titles to records (more information)
10-2010
08-2010
  • Changed to new Libraries site design
03-2010
01-2010
12-2009
  • A committee was formed to investigate discovery tool products.
  • Libraries staff viewed a vendor webinar on Ex Libris Primo Central.
  • Improved table of contents indexing and page layout.
  • Improved links to nearby call numbers.
11-2009
10-2009
  • Added CSU Theses/Dissertations format and ProQuest full text links.
  • Added export to EndNote and other reference management software.
  • Added citations for Digital Repository items and Web pages.
  • Multiple search boxes are displayed on advanced search results.
  • Improved search history and repeat search.
  • Improved the word stemming algorithm.
08-2009
  • Discovery is the default search option on the new Libraries home.
  • Added Digital Repository items and CSU Libraries Web pages.
  • Added facets (source, digital repository collections, and subsites).
  • Added availability in Prospector and Poudre libraries.
  • Improved display of browsing and facets.
  • Improved search result ranking algorithm.
  • Improved layout and suggestions for searches with no results.
04-2009
03-2009
  • Added journal title search.
  • Added Prospector links to search results and item views.
  • Added search term highlighting.
  • Added Previous, Next and Back links to records.
  • Improved language, location and publication date field values.
  • Improved sorting for browsing.
02-2009
  • Discovery was released to the public.
01-2009
12-2008
  • Internal usability studies of Discovery were conducted.
08-2008
  • An advisory team was formed to assist in design decisions.
08-2008
  • Libraries staff were trained by VuFind creator Andrew Nagy.
08-2008
  • VuFind was selected as the basis of the CSU Libraries discovery tool.
Early 2008  
  • Open-source library catalog interfaces and technologies were tested.
Late 2007
  • Faceted search tools and library catalog interfaces were explored.
03-2007
  • The Research and Development Services department was created.

Project

Discovery is an online search tool which was developed by the former Research and Development Services department of Colorado State University Libraries.

Discovery is based on VuFind, an open-source software project started at Villanova University to improve searching of library catalogs and other Web-based resources. VuFind is based on:

  • Apache Lucene: a search engine library for indexing content
  • Solr: a Lucene-based search server that includes facets
  • PHP: a scripting language for Web development
  • AJAX: techniques used to load data asynchronously (facets, availability)

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