Falcone Library reorganized its website over the summer with the hope of making it easier for our users to find library research materials. During the forced closure this past spring and summer, many students, working from off-campus, struggled to locate the online materials they needed for their coursework. That became a major point of focus for the Library’s redesign work.
There are two main changes you will see, as well as a number of other smaller details that you might not notice at first. First, we combined the former “Find Books” and “Find Articles” categories in the navigation menus at the top of Library web pages into a single “Search Collections” menu. We saw that library users were not looking for just books and journal articles; they also needed to be able to find non-traditional materials, especially electronic books (ebooks) and streaming videos.
The second change to the site is a reorganization of the tabs on the homepage. In our new approach, we wanted to focus on the different ways that you can search Library collections. Each tab highlights a different material type and provides a search box that is optimized for that material. For example, under “Find Films”, we recognized that some students are looking for streaming videos to watch as a class assignment while others are looking for DVDs to take back to their rooms to watch as entertainment. The new search boxes are designed to make those kinds of distinctions easier.
We recognize that this work was done without the benefit of being able to talk to Library users and we accept that some of the changes might be a little jarring at first if you remember how the site worked before. Please send your feedback to the Library Web Committee.