I would point out, too, that Encore (the example given) is not one of the major discovery systems.  The 'Big Four' discovery services, as they are often called, are those developed by OCLC, Ex Libris, Serials Solutions, and Ebsco.

Encore is really a different kind of system.  It has no aggregated article index of its own.  Rather, the system is designed to integrate your local catalog results with article results from an external service, either via Innovative's own federated search system or, more recently, from Ebsco Discovery.

In that way, Encore is a lot more like VUFind, in fact, than the Big Four discovery services, in so far as you can integrate article results from a discovery service (currently Summon and Primo Central) into VUFind as well.

To my mind, then, there's little reason to run both VUFind and Encore (specifically).  Damien, I think, provided a good case for why you might want to run VUFind in conjunction with a true discovery service: that is, to have greater control over the local catalog results and the interface.  Other institutions are doing similar things with Blacklight or their own systems.

--Dave
-------------------------
David Walker
Director, Systemwide Digital Library Services
California State University
562-355-4845


-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jonathan Rochkind
Sent: Monday, May 06, 2013 10:47 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] discovery layers question

I think you first need to be clear about what you would be trying to do by using a hosted discovery product simultaneously with VuFind. What would be the goals, why would you be doing this, what are you trying to accomplish?  Would you be offering both Encore and a VuFind implementation as alternate services for your users to use? Or would they be combined somehow? How would you want to combine them?

You need to be clear on this internally, on what you're trying to do, to have any hope of success.  Being clear about that when you ask a question on the list will also elicit more useful answers; I'm not really entirely sure what you're asking.

On 5/6/2013 1:39 PM, Donna Campbell wrote:
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> Is anyone in using VuFind as well as one of the major webscale 
> discovery layers (e.g., Encore)? If so, what complications do you encounter?
>
> Cordially,
>
> Donna R. Campbell
> Technical Services & Systems Librarian
> (215) 935-3872 (phone)
> (267) 295-3641 (fax)
> Mailing Address (via USPS):
> Westminster Theological Seminary Library P.O. Box 27009 Philadelphia, 
> PA 19118  USA Shipping Address (via UPS or FedEx):
> Westminster Theological Seminary Library
> 2960 W. Church Rd.
> Glenside, PA 19038  USA
>
>