Library Tech Talk

Have you ever wanted to look up a book when you were deep in the heart of the library stacks, riding the bus, or between sets at the gym? We have! The User Experience Department, along with Library Systems, is proud to present Mirlyn Mobile.

Our Articles search is now even better. The University of Michigan Library is now using Serials Solutions Summon article discovery tool for the new improved ArticlesPlus tool. Now, when you search the ArticlesPlus tab on the library web site, you are searching across 190 million full-text and citation-only records available to the University of Michigan community through the University of Michigan Library.

When you do a search on the University of Michigan Library's web site, you get not only results from the catalog, web site, online journal and database collections, and more, you also get a librarian who is a subject specialist related to your search term. While the matching is not perfect, it provides a human face on search results.

The Usability Group & its Usability Task Force conducted a series of evaluations of the Library Gateway during the Fall 2009 and Winter 2010 semesters. We used a number of different methods, some new to us, to conduct our evaluations, including Participatory Design, Card Sorting and Guerrilla Tests.

We have recently made a number of significant updates to the HathiTrust Digital Library.

DLPS is currently (July 2010) exploring possible avenues for the future development of DLXS. I compiled this brief survey of existing digital library software systems to gain a better understanding of where DLXS fits in the current landscape, and what other systems have to offer.

We just released a new feature in our full-text Large Scale Search for HathiTrust. When you do a search, you will see check boxes next to each search result. You can select items you want from the search results and create a personal collection.

The Proxy Server Bookmarklet (originally released in September 2009, and described in the post titled Proxy Server Bookmarklet for iPhone) has been updated to include instructions for using it on an iPad, as well as on an iPod Touch or iPhone. Installation is now a bit simpler than it was since the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch now allow copying and pasting.

Post by Eric Maslowski. If you’ve ever wanted to view and share some of the most rare and beautiful items in the Library’s collection, the PictureIt Rare Book Reader is your tool. The PictureIt site allows you to "turn the pages" of digitized rare materials on the web.

Post by Maria Bonn. On Wednesday, the Scholarly Publishing Office activated more than 225,000 "buy a reprint" links in HathiTrust, increasing the number of public domain reprints available for purchase by more than 300%.