There is a message floating around the net with a link to a survey about “a completely new online resource discovery service.” There is no identifying information information on the survey; obviously the entity that commissioned it wants to remain private. I, however, want to know who this organization is. (I have some questions to ask.) Think of it as a game — a treasure hunt of sorts. Speculations welcome, either publicly in the comments or privately.
The message going around says:
Subject: REMINDER: Take a library survey – you may earn a $100 Amazon voucher
If you haven’t already done so, please participate in our 15-minute web survey and be entered to win one of five $100 Amazon gift certificates.
We’d like your feedback on the potential value of a completely new online resource discovery service for libraries. All you need to do is click on the link and answer our brief survey.
Winners will receive their $100 Amazon gift certificate via email by midnight September 30th 2008.
Thanks for participating!
On-Line Communications
401 S Dewey, Suite 500
Bartlesville, OK 74003
The survey itself contains a description of the entity conducting the survey and a sample screenshot of the new discovery layer being tested:
Screenshot from the Survey's Prototype Discovery Tool
ABOUT THE VENDORThis new discovery service is offered by a major vendor that has been exclusively serving libraries for a matter of decades. This vendor has:
- Extensive expertise in large-scale hosted search
- Experience in the quality treatment of scholarly content and its metadata
- Market recognition for consistently designing interfaces with users in mind
- Excellent, long-term relationships with thousands of publishers
- Deep knowledge of library e-resources
- Trusted, longstanding reputation for superior customer service
PRICING
The exact annual subscription rate for this discovery service would depend primarily on your enrollment/FTE.
These costs are still being developed, but an initial estimate for institutions like yours is $xxx per year, plus a one-time installation fee of $xxx.
The vendor believes that the subscription cost would be offset by savings from no longer needing to have a federated search product nor any hardware or maintenance associated with it.
The e-mail was sent out through what looks like a standard commercial bulk emailer (like the kind that send out corporate newsletters and advertisements). The amrsurvey.com domain is registered to an entity called Action Market Research, so that isn’t much help. Thoughts about who is sponsoring this survey?
4 Comments
Hmmm…my first guess was OCLC, right off the bat. Has the age, has the clout, has WorldCat. But WC can be mashed up. Obviously , the person who wrote the survey is clueless- what user cares if the OPAC is OS? Who would ask?
The question about how much of a price increase was bizarre - either a declaration that we don’t have the product yet, or that they’re dishonest and seeking big bucks. Of course, the fact that you’re dismissed if you don’t claim to be from a large library and have considerable influence over purchasing hints that way.
Next question is, who would have this kind of survey done? I think the big dogs are a little more sophisticated than this survey is. I would fire a research team that used this as a starting point for marketing or development. I totally made up my “library”, no check that I wasn’t don saklad.
I almost felt like it was a Turing test.
My guess is that it’s a flagpole - someone has a fairly bright idea - a Google Scholar/Books/WC mashup that filters by your subscriptions. They run a “survey” to see what the market will bear before looking for venture capital or taking it to a big dog and trying to sell it. Too many red flags to be someone with “decades” of experience, too many business terms (ROI on a OPAC?), just doesn’t smell right. Even the Amazon certificates doesn’t ring true.
I’ll be curious to see what shows up in my spam mailbox ; )
s
Good thoughts, Susan. I thought some of the questions in the survey were sort of bazaar, too. It was asking me to evaluate a product based on a textual description of what they want you to think it is plus a screenshot. (Which is one of the reasons why I wanted to have a more in-depth conversation with this entity.) I wasn’t as put off by the financial questions — it just sounded like overt techniques to figure out exactly what the market will tolerate for a product like this. And I, too, had to fib about my organization (”consortial office” wasn’t a choice for classification of my employer) so as not to be dismissed after the first screen.
Also, in case it needs to be explicitly mentioned, the sponsoring organization is welcome to out itself here or contact me privately for an off-the-record conversation.
I wonder if this isn’t the merged Serials Solutions/Web Feat product due out next year?
That building looked familiar, too.
It could be Serials Solutions / WebFeat, but I don’t think Serials Solutions has much in the way of experience with large indexes of actual content. As I recall, the survey spoke of a pre-computed index solution over a federated-only solution, so it would potentially be a big leap in capability for them.
I also took a look at the picture of the building, but thought it was just generic artwork rather than a picture of the actual entity creating this.
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