8. A National Digital Library or Platform as Service? Finna Project from Research Library's Point of View

How to build a user interface for a national digital library and offer a platform configurable for individual library’s, archive’s or museum’s discovery needs? The question has been essential for Finna project which combines the both aims. In this poster we outline the benefits and challenges of this approach for research libraries participating in Finna.

We argue that as a platform service Finna is clearly becoming significant for Finnish research libraries. Finna offers tools to build and maintain a discovery layer to meet the organizational needs. Libraries participating in Finna replace their old OPACs with a new Finna discovery interface which also includes their licensed resources: Ex Libris’ Primo Central Index, SFX and MetaLib. In future Metalib will be abandoned and the list of academic databases and search engines will be maintained as Marc 21 records in another system, possibly the main library system. These resources will be then harvested by Finna as usual. Almost all the libraries of Finnish universities or universities of applied sciences are building their Finna interfaces or have already published one.

It has not always been clear what Finna as a user interface for national digital library has to offer for research libraries. The so called National view of Finna, Finna.fi, combines the contents provided by Finnish libraries, archives and museums. On one hand it is a portal service like Europeana or Digital Public Library of America, on the other it also has service functions for library patrons such as reserving material or renewing loans. The cross-domain national digital library side of the Finna project has brought challenges for research libraries which we present in the poster. In addition we discuss the possible benefits: for example in the context of open access materials and researcher’s needs.

The basic mission of a discovery system is to give the patrons a single search interface into content: both local and non-local, the printed material and licensed or open access digital content that is provided by the library or is considered to be essential to its patrons. How does Finna fulfill this mission? The Finna discovery interfaces of individual research libraries have a single search box but two, or sometimes even four, separate results lists. In the poster we discuss why compromises compared with the ideal have been necessary also from the point of view of the user experience.

The information in the poster is based on surveys of the views of libraries, archives and museums participating in the Finna project, Finna user surveys, usability tests and interviews with research library directors and specialists.