A New Search Interface

BHL has a new look and improved functionality. As a result of user feedback received from the BHL survey and through our feedback form we have improved the BHL interface. Gone are the days of the subject keyword tag-cloud on the BHL homepage. Today, the new interface provides a variety of tabs to facilitate simple or advanced search strategies.

Highlights of improvements

• Search is given more emphasis – search is now the central focus of the home page. Users can start with either a general search or more advanced search easily just by clicking additional tabs.

• more Advanced Search options – users can now search one or more fields within a book or journal (e.g. title, author, volume, language, etc)

• search by Series – series statements are now searched when searching a book or journal. These statements are also included in the search results when available.

• search by Citation – individual citations can now be searched via the Citation Finder tab. This feature uses the BHL’s OpenURL resolver to search for individual pages in books and journals.

• Browse and Search are now more consistent – browse and search pages and search results are now consistent in appearance and functionality. For example, users can now more easily sift through a long list of search results by sorting results either by title, author, or year

• CSV download option – Books/Journals search results are now downloadable as .csv format.

The BHL does its best to follow up on the suggestions of our users whenever possible. We welcome your feedback about the new user interface via our feedback form http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/Feedback.aspx and will consider suggestions for further improvement as we continue to enhance the BHL.

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Written by

Bianca Crowley is the Digital Collections Manager for the Biodiversity Heritage Library, headquartered at Smithsonian Libraries and Archives. She has spent her career in this role helping consortium Partners grow and curate BHL's collection. Her main responsibilities revolve around program administration and collection management, but you can also find her tackling technical development, documentation, copyright, and cataloging issues as time allows. She received her MSLIS from The Catholic University of America.