Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Where Did the Databases Go?

As you may have noticed, we've made some dramatic changes to our website. One question that we have heard through backchannels is "what happened to the databases?"

After doing a wide-ranging study of student use of the library, we learned that many students who want to search for articles were baffled by our previous site. We also had long experienced confusion on the part of students who associate the word "catalog" with list of courses and major requirements.



To solve those category problems, we simplified our entry point to get people quickly to the most-often used resources and gave them common names. Unfortunately, libraries are more complex than that. The tab we labeled "books" is also the gateway to films, sound recordings, and music scores. The tab we labeled "articles" is also where you'll find databases that include book content, statistics, and primary sources. We'll be continuing to study use of the library's main page, and no doubt will make more tweaks as a result.

But the short answer, meanwhile, is "click on the Articles tab."

photo courtesy of f1usster (Jeannie)

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