Usable Library of the Week – Multnomah County Library

This week’s usable library is: Multnomah County Library What I like: Prominent single search box labeled “Find everything at the library”  searches both catalog and site.  Example: A search for “storytime” returns both book results and library events in a “bento-box” display: “My MCL” links gets users quickly to their holds, checkouts, as well as reading lists…

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How is discovery implemented in library sites? New study provides data

An interesting study from Scott Jones and Angie Thorpe in the latest issue of the Journal of Web Librarianship: Library Home Page Design at Medium-Sized Institutions Jones and Thorpe systematically analyzed library website homepage content at 313 medium-sized academic institutions (3,000-9,999 FTE).  They looked at 118 different design elements, including how web scale discovery services…

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Chrome plugin makes it easier for users to bypass the library

Thought provoking post this week by Aaron Tay on his blog Musings About Librarianship: Lazy Scholar – Interesting Chrome extension – a review and comparison with other library find full text options Aaron discusses Lazy Scholar, a Chrome browser extension that streamlines discovery of free full-text using Google Scholar.   From an abstract found on…

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