Research Where You Are – The New Primo Library Research Tool

The service-oriented budget minded MBLWHOI Library is always trying to figure out ways to better serve our scientists.

Our 27 year old Voyager library system has served us well. It was a truely cutting edge library search and organizational tool when we first implemented it in the mid-1990’s. The MBLWHOI Library was a development partner of the Voyager product. Since then, integrated library systems (ILS) have gone through numerous generations of development. For the Woods Hole scientist-researcher this has meant getting closer and closer to efficient single box searching. Thus a single search rather than different searches across multiple search engines and databases returns the needed content. Towards the end of 2019, Library Co-Directors Lisa Raymond of WHOI and Jen Walton of MBL selected “the descendant” of the Voyager system known as Primo, to be the central MBLWHOI Library software. Both Primo and Voyager are products of the global library services company, Ex Libris. Ex Libris is a Jerusalem, Israel based development and service company, with over 7000 client libraries worldwide involved in every aspect of library service delivery.

 

 

For the past six months the MBLWHOI Library staff has met online twice weekly with the Primo implementation team in Jerusalem for training and technical instruction in how to effectively operate Primo!

In preparation for this day, we beta-tested Primo in Woods Hole with some of our most frequent library users. Below are 3 comments about new Primo from 3 researchers who have kindly agreed to let us reprint their comments here.

From a WHOI scientist: “I’ve tested out the new MBLWHOI Library Search tool and I’d like to share very positive feedback! I found the “Advanced Search” feature to be user-friendly and well-functioning; to my observation the results were both relevant and comprehensive based on my search terms. The “Tweak your results” sidebar, with capability to filter by resource type and journal (among other criteria), is great for refining results easily. The ability to easily export a text citation is a useful feature. I’d like to report a positive user experience with the new search tool. I did not notice any issues or glitches when using the search tool.”

From Dr. Bill Waite at USGS: “Your NEW site, though – wow! Now I can just go there when I realize there’s a paper I want, and everything is linked through all the way to the sign in and download process – it means only one search and saves a ton of steps!”

From Dr. Ken Brink, WHOI: “I just spent some time playing with this. I did not find any obvious hiccups, and I did find that it led me to what I was seeking pretty effectively. I even found a report where I was a co-author and that I had forgotten about! Overall, pretty positive.”

 

We invite you to try out Primo, the new library search tool. If you have any questions, comments, or would like to work with an MBLWHOI librarian to better acclimate to using this tool, please contact us.

Please consider looking at our extensive Primo Frequently Asked Questions pages.