What supports good uptake of the Knowledge and Library Hub?

It has been almost 5 years since the Hub was launched as an NHS in England wide discovery portal.

Prior to 2021 there was a patchy picture of experimentation and adoption of discovery tools with varying degrees of satisfaction.

Having a system wide discovery network has, unsurprisingly, not resulted in uniform uptake.

With a major refresh of the interface completed  we wanted to understand why the Hub is particularly popular with the users of some organisations and what may have contributed to lower uptake in others.

How we investigated

The data for usage was examined to identify outliers with consideration of the size and types of organisations. A simple metric was defined based on active engagements with the Hub divided by the WTE clinical workforce.

28 organisations were invited to participate (two high / low scorers for each tier).  

14 organisations agreed to be interviewed with an even split of 7 of the highest and lowest scorers against the metric.

The interviewed sample included 10 acute Trusts, 1 acute / community Trust, 2 mental / community trusts and 1 community Trust offering a variety of settings with all of the tiers represented.

Semi-structured interviews were completed to consider the explanations for the pattern of usage seen for their Hub. The content of these interviews was analysed and then a quantitative validation survey (drawing 102 responses) was used to test the resulting theories on what drives uptake.

What we discovered

Findings predominantly indicate that it is the degree of engagement of the Knowledge and Library Service (KLS) team that is critical to adoption of the Hub by users.

High usage organisations pay attention to their Hub ensuring it is well set up and integrated with their services. The Hub is prominent in their active promotion and training offers. Their efforts to make the hub visible are reflected in the inclusion of the Hub on desktops and via embedded search options. Usage can be impacted by disruption to the team or wider organisation where this leads to breaks in, or loss of, engagement. This is particularly the case where staffing is low.

Past disappointing experiences with discovery tools can lead to low KLS team engagement and low expectations that become a self fulfilling prophecy.

The validation survey backed up the thematic analysis of the interview data. It also sought to understand views on KLS teams thought the priorities for their users would be from the Hub. A ranking approach was used. Combining the scores where the statements were ranked as the top 2 the top perceived priorities for users were:

1. Simple searching (56)
2. Broad search across a range of sources (44)
3. To find “something” about a topic (30)

Lower scores were assigned to the Hub as portal, as a place to find ebooks and as a familiar style of tool for students.

The efforts of Knowledge and Library Service teams make the difference.

Resources and services need to be activated and promoted to users if they are going to reach their potential.

The full report is attached to this blog post.

Thanks to all the participants who shared their experiences.