Wednesday, June 18, 2008

New library website to launch July 1st.

The staff of the S.C. Williams Library is pleased to announce the upcoming launch of its new website planned for July 1, 2008. The new site brings into focus the most important content of the former version and is more intuitive to navigate. We hope you’ll find the new site to be more logically organized – it should make finding the information you need quicker and easier.

The site design focuses on technologies that enable communication and interactivity and simplifies access to resources and services so that using the website for your research is less complicated.

Features of the new site:

  • Clear, concise and logical navigation

  • Simple, elegant design

  • Greater accessibility of online resources

  • Guidance for using library resources (tutorials, subject guides, chat reference via instant messaging, ‘how do I?’ menu, ‘help’ section, ‘ask us’ page)

  • Multiple, logical access points to information and resources

  • Meebo© instant messaging application on homepage, which allows users to chat with librarians during reference hours without having to log in or sign up for any instant messaging account

  • Recent publications section highlights whenever a member of the Stevens community publishes in an academic journal (indexed by the Scopus© database)

  • News and Events section on homepage that highlights what’s going on at the library

  • Rotating pictures showcase distinctive pieces of art housed within the library

  • New Multisearch tool allows searching across multiple resources at once

We are looking forward to rolling out all of these new features and we hope you will be as excited to see our new website as we will be on July 1st. Please feel free to send us your feedback on the new site, here in the comments or by email. We look forward to hearing from you.