Association Publishers: Workers want your specialized professional development resources - are they optimized for discoverability?
A post over at the No Shelf Required portal highlighting a new whitepaper from Oxford University Press recently caught our eye . Navigating Research examines "how users seek contextual information and guidance for areas of scholarship as they conduct research, and how reference resources can support their work.” Key findings of the paper, include, among others (bolding ours): recognition of ‘reference’ as a specific category is declining and users are not likely to identify ‘reference resources as those belonging to a distinct category research needs of today’s researchers are moving away from basic factual information and terminology (for which free online sources are used) resources offering guidance to a field of study retain appeal as a ‘bridge between introductory materials and specialized research publications'” resources offering guidance to a field of study are also used to support work in interdisciplinary fields use of ref...