Udini is Coming

Found out about this one as a result of a recent chat reference query. Udini (You-dini) has been in quiet testing mode for the past couple of months. ProQuest developed it because, for years, they’ve been fielding queries from researchers seeking access to a particular piece of content, but who aren’t affiliated with a library that has it (these queries often came from researchers who knew and used ProQuest products during their college / university careers and learned from librarians to value highly credible resources). So Udini is ProQuest’s test of how they might connect those unaffiliated users to high-quality research materials. It is different from the comprehensive service ProQuest provides to libraries, and it’s not meant to replace it, but Udini provides unaffiliated, serious researchers with a centralized source for finding, acquiring, organizing, and using credible research material for their professional projects. ProQuest’s goal is to align with the library vision of expanding user access to high quality content.

At present the collection is a large slice of ProQuest’s considerable content: 140+ million articles, from about 12,000 sources. Users sign up, search, discover, and preview articles for free. If they choose to purchase an article, they upload it to a cloud-based personal research environment (which also enables them to upload their own documents, save web pages, make notes, etc.). There’s no long-term commitment, nothing to download or install. Udini is designed to provide an affordable option for independent researchers — and those who want to extend access to ProQuest content after college graduation — to search and use high-quality content that would otherwise be unavailable to them.

In a couple months the service will, according to my ProQuest contact, have matured enough to stand up to librarian test drives, and at that point they’re going to let me offer e-Views readers a free trial through the blog. I’m posting on it now because researchers are hearing rumors of it, and I figure you’ll want to know about it in advance.

This one is very much going to be more as it happens, and looks like it will happen first right here! Soon, soon!

Cheryl