April's Resource Discovery Forum took place on Tuesday 26 April 2011 in the Information Commons. There was a good turnout, despite the session being sandwiched between two extended holiday weekends. With enough of us to form three groups (led by Andy Bussey, Library Systems Manager; Elaine Dean, Head of Service Development; and Rachel Mason, Metadata & eTechnologies Manager), we were keen to discuss the main topic of the session: what should the resource discovery layer be called? Each group reviewed some of the names other institutions have chosen for their Primo installations before coming up with some suggestions for our own. Then we discussed ideas for involving colleagues and customers in the naming process.
Comparing notes of the breakout discussions, it was clear that we agreed on the importance of branding and identity for Library systems and services. Making Library products more easily identifiable for customers was a key concern and the groups agreed that rebranding was important. Primo is the brand name of the product, but some institutions have chosen to use or include it in their own names for their resource discovery layers (such as University of Cape Town's primo.uct and University of Strathclyde's SUPrimo). There was a feeling that Primo was more of a technical term in that it would mean something to Library staff, but not that much to customers. We preferred a more descriptive name that helps customers understand what the resource discovery layer is and what it does. Examples we liked from other institutions included University of Iowa's Smart Search and Yale University's YuFind. We felt this approach was particularly important as a resource discovery layer is and does more than a traditional library catalogue (it searches remote repositories, delivers full text and provides access to a full range of Library services, for example). The group agreed that it would be good to try to reflect some of this in the name.
We also agreed that a good brand name should be memorable and concise. An acronym was a possibility as this could be descriptive, though less likely to be understood immediately by new customers. On the other hand, a strong brand quickly becomes associated with the product in the customer's mind (like our current Star catalogue). It seems there's a grain of truth in the tongue in cheek comment of one RDF member - "avoid anything that's too gimmicky and anything that's not gimmicky enough!" Interesting, informative, memorable AND concise - it's a formidable task.
So, what happens next? The project team and other colleagues will agree a shortlist of suggestions and make this available for wider consultation. This will be ongoing over the next few months and we'll keep you up to date via this blog and the usual channels.
