Library Tech Talk

More than 15% of user searches for the seven most commonly used databases on the University of Michigan Library’s website were misspellings of the database name. We looked through our search logs for the three months spanning January 1-April 2, 2014, to find correct and likely incorrect search queries.

Looking back, there are a few lessons that most resonated over the course of my first year as the library's web content strategist.

After running for over a decade, BlueStream was retired on June 30th, 2014.

The library recently completed a successful, six-month pilot program for a new model of web content oversight. Each division appointed a web content coordinator to represent them, and together the coordinators work in library-wide issues.

During the Winter 2014 term, 60 M-STEM Academy students used a Learning Technologies Incubation Group (LTIG)-developed digital badging application to earn awards for competencies acquired outside of the traditional classroom setting.

The University Library has a new blogging platform to which most U-M Library blogs will gradually move over the coming months. The new blogging platform (on which this post was published!) is built in Drupal with an accessible, responsive design. It is designed to bring together the library’s many blogs into one convenient location.

A look at how the U-M Library website's search boxes were used during the Fall 2012 semester.

The Digital Conversion Unit (DCU) recently acquired a new setup that will allow for the digital capture of 3D objects, realia, and ephemera. The new equipment will create museum quality photos of 3D objects to be included in the Library's digital collections.

MTagger, the University Library's social bookmarking tool, has been turned off, having been replaced by the new MLibrary Favorites tool.

Over the past months, a team of library staff comprising the MLibrary Favorites Working Group (Albert Bertram, Sigrid Cordell, Jonathan Rothman, Sonu Mishra, and Ken Varnum), together with Bill Dueber from Library Systems, have been working on an improved Favorites tool for the library web site.