Discovery updates 5/11/2018

As we reach the end of the spring semester, we’re nearing the release of the Blacklight search, which is scheduled to launch at the end of June 2018.

Through July, Primo (i.e. the current “Library Search”) will continue to serve as our primary search, as we complete testing of the new discovery system. By early August, we will complete the process of transitioning from Primo to Blacklight, preparing for the beginning of the fall semester. A full schedule and rollout plan for the summer will be provided to all staff later this month.

Blacklight

The Blacklight dev team, along with support from various strategic partners, has been working on the following goals/tasks in March and April:

• Customization of the physical items display in Catalog search
  In the February beta release, we were still reliant upon the Alma-provided view of our physical holdings and items in Blacklight. With new technical options introduced by Ex Libris, we now have been able to create our own custom display, which is simpler and less confusing than the previous view while still retrieving essential information from Alma. It also provides us with more flexibility as we begin to build out other features, including request functionality this month. To test this out, go to https://libqa.library.temple.edu/catalog (please note that you will need to be connected to the Temple network via an ethernet cable or VPN).

• Integration of Primo Central Index (PCI) as Articles search
  Along with the Alma catalog, records from our article index can now be accessed and viewed through Blacklight, using the same template and styling from the catalog for the display of search results and full record pages. Users can filter by facets such as Resource Type, Author/Creator, Topic, and Language, and can get quick access to the electronic resource links via our “Online” button. We have also begun work on incorporating other features, such as bookmarks and export options for articles. To test this out, go to https://libqa.library.temple.edu/catalog/articles (please note that you will need to be connected to the Temple network via an ethernet cable or VPN).

• Design and implementation of “bento-box” search
  We are also working on implementing a new design approach to our main search, in which pre-filtered search results from different library systems and collections can be shown side-by-side (informally known as a “bento-box” search). This allows us to incorporate the Catalog and Articles searches together as well as other sources eventually, such as the library web pages and LibGuides. This should be ready for review and testing by the end of the month.

• Additional updates to publishing/indexing processes
  In addition to the search interface, we’ve been working to improve our processes for publishing updates from Alma, reindexing in Blacklight, and further developing our system infrastructure.

In coordination with the development work, a small team from the Strategic Partners group, led by Rachel Cox, also conducted user testing in April, asking following questions about our Blacklight search:

• Can users identify which resources are available electronically and access those resources successfully?

• Can users identify which resources are available physically and the information that they would need to retrieve that resource?

The observations and recommendations from this will be shared later this month. If you would like to submit your own feedback regarding the ongoing development of Blacklight, you can email Emily Toner (emily.toner@temple.edu) directly with your comments.

Primo 

Primo May 2018 release

Tomorrow on Saturday May 12th, Primo will be updated by Ex Libris with new improvements and bug fixes. This includes the addition of Open Access facet option and improvements to automated feedback messages in the search results. Refer to the Primo May 2018 Highlights for full details (please note that the features related to the Resource Recommender, the pre-filter search, and the Newspaper search interface will not be implemented in our local instance). In the June 2018 release of Primo Central, the Books facet value will also be divided into two separate resource types: Books and Book Chapters. 

Ongoing support

Please email tul-web-support@temple.edu to submit issues related to the Primo user interface/search, indexing, and related Alma integrations.  To follow the progress of ongoing bugs and improvements, see the TUL Web Support issue tracker: https://tulibdev.atlassian.net/projects/WEB/issues.