Response from students at Loughborough College has been very positive, as Clare Holden, Learning Resources Manager, explains, “For the pilot, Aspire has been included in our induction programme for selected A level courses. Feedback from students has shown that by using Aspire, they have found useful information that they may well not have discovered by simply going to one source, or by using a search engine.”
The Aspire service brings together quality subscription based and free online resources, making them all available with one, easy-to-use search. In doing so, Aspire improves the visibility of online resources, promotes the existence of useful information and maximises the benefit that students get from the investment made in e-resources.
At Loughborough, the Aspire service currently searches Encyclopaedia Britannica, Grove Music, Grove Art, Emerald, Oxford Reference Online, Infotrac, RDN Resources and the library catalogue, with many more resources becoming available soon. Aspire is Athens authentication approved and as a result it was plugged directly into the existing Athens password system at Loughborough College.
Aspire has recently been the subject of a series of regional roadshows, which provided Further Education colleges with the opportunity to see the service in action and feed in their requirements for federated searching. Robin Murray, Managing Director at OCLC PICA Ltd summarises the feedback, “Federated searching is no longer just for the Higher Education sector. The overwhelmingly positive response we received at the roadshows demonstrates that FE College libraries are now ready to implement federated searching, as long as the service has been designed to meet their specific needs and budgets.”
Clare Holden summarises the plans for Aspire at Loughborough College, “We haven’t seen any other portals like Aspire, that have been built with FE College requirements and budgets in mind. We are very pleased with how the pilot is shaping up and the service will really take off with the new student intake in September.”
Aspire will be launched on the 1st August 2006. For more information about the service contact Elisabeth Robinson e.robinson@oclcpica.org or visit http://aspire.hostedbyfdi.net
