Library Tech Talk

In 2024, updates to the Plain Language Medical Dictionary (PLMD) included big improvements for accessibility and user experience, plus adding support for images. We fixed contrast issues, unclear icons, and missing labels to meet WCAG 2.1. Search also got smoother, and instructions are now clearer. In addition, we added image support with JSON updates for URLs and alt text. With our legacy hosting environment shutting down, we moved the PLMD moved to GitHub Pages as part of the project. This provides better stability and automatic updates via GitHub Actions.

As part of a broader product accessibility initiative in Library Information Technology, the team behind the library’s website undertook a number of remediation efforts based on the findings of the site’s baseline accessibility evaluation. The work demonstrates how accessibility remediation can also be an opportunity for code clean-up, usability improvements, and refreshing design elements.

When we moved our library catalog from Aleph to Alma in 2020, we left behind the Aleph OPAC (also known as Mirlyn Classic), which we had used as our “legacy” catalog for years even after moving first to a VuFind-based discovery layer (known as VuFind Mirlyn), and then to our current, homegrown, Library Search application. This describes how we built our authority browse features.

How we designed and built our “nearby on shelf” feature for Library Catalog records.

The U-M Library recently added the capability to search across Chinese-language materials in our catalog, regardless of which Chinese character set was used in the query or the record. This improvement expands to our large collection of materials and improves the user experience.

Academic library service portfolios are mostly a mix of big to small strategic initiatives and tactical projects. Systems developed in the past can become a durable bedrock of workflows and services around the library, remaining relevant and needed for five, ten, and sometimes as long as twenty years. There is, of course, never enough time and resources to do everything. The challenge faced by Library IT divisions is to balance the tension of sustaining these legacy systems while continuing to innovate and develop new services. The University of Michigan’s Library IT portfolio has legacy systems in need of ongoing maintenance and support, in addition to new projects and services that add to and expand the portfolio. We, at Michigan, worked on a process to balance the portfolio of services and projects for our Library IT division. We started working on the idea of developing a custom tool for our needs since all the other available tools are oriented towards corporate organizations and we needed a light-weight tool to support our process. We went through a complete planning process first on whiteboards and paper, then developed an open source tool called TRACC for helping us with portfolio management.

The U-M Library launched a completely new primary website in July after 2 years of work. The redesign project team focused on building a strong team, internal communication, content strategy, and practicing needs informed design and development to make the project a success.

How to add ordered metadata fields in Samvera Hyrax. Includes example code and links to actual code.

This article reviews how 9,000+ frames of photographic negatives from the Harry A. Franck collection are being digitally preserved.

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) has collected and made searchable a vast quantity of metadata from digital collections all across the country. The Michigan Service Hub works with cultural heritage institutions throughout the state to collect their metadata, transform those metadata to be compatible with the DPLA’s online library, and send the transformed metadata to the DPLA, using the Combine aggregator software, which is being developed here at the U of M Library.