SAGE has commissioned a White Paper called Improving the Discoverability of Scholarly Content in the Twenty-First Century - Collaboration Opportunities for Librarians, Publishers, and Vendors. The paper was jointly written by Mary M. Somerville, Barbara J. Schader, and John R. Sack and tries to contribute further to the conversation and debate around discoverability of data.

The on-screen format is not wonderful for reading - the font is a non-Web-friendly serif font, and no option is given to download the whole paper. You have to click through it page by laborious page.

The abstract says:

^{"Discoverability is a popular buzzword - ultimately meaning the degree to which scholars can locate the content needed to advance their research and other creative activity. Improved user discovery experiences require heightened collaboration among (1) scholarly publishers and their published authors; (2) search engine developers, database providers, abstracting and indexing services, and academic publishers; (3) electronic resource management and integrated library system vendors; and (4) librarians who advance institutional discoverability. Drawing from interviews with value chain experts, results of research studies, and insights from scholarly literature, this white paper assesses the currently fragmented discovery environment and proposes cross-sector conversations to further visibility and, ultimately, usage of the scholarly corpus, not only on the open web, but within library services."}

They conclude that the development of more sophisticated discovery and visibility strategies depends on greater cross-sectoral collaborations among librarians, publishers, editors and vendors.

Joseph Esposito from The Scholarly Kitchen has commented on the paper and the panel discussion about it at the Midwinter ALA conference in Dallas, Texas.