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We’re always looking for ways to improve your library experience. For the past year we’ve been working hard behind the scenes to design a new search results page that makes it easier for you to discover all that the ZSR library has to offer. After lots of design changes and extensive testing, we’re ready to go live! Here are some of the improvements we hope you’ll love.

One Search, Clearer Results

One thing we wanted to improve was the clarity of your search results. You should know right away whether the results you’re seeing are books, journal articles, news, or films. And if you’re looking for just books, or journal articles, or films, you should have one-click access to more items of that type. Our new search groups like items together into boxes, making it easier for you to know at a glance what you’re seeing. If you need more books, just click “See more book results,” and you’ll be whisked away to all of the books we might have on your topic. Don’t see exactly what you’re looking for? Check out the list of additional formats at the bottom of the page.

Better Recommendations & Best Bets

Sometimes you just need to dive into a specialized subject database for some in-depth research. Now, when you search for a topic, our search tool will suggest databases that might be helpful in that area, including some you may not have even known we had access to! And of course, if you know exactly the database you want–like JSTOR, or Mintel, or PubMed–just try searching for it by name. We’ll give you a “Best Bet” link directly to your database at the top of the page. Try this for a search like “study rooms,” too!

Find Help, Right from Search

We’re biased, but we think some of our best resources are our expert subject librarians who are here to help you with your research. Now, when you do a search for something like “educational psychology,” you’ll see our librarians for both Education and Psychology, as well as some of the helpful research guides they’ve created to help you along. Go ahead–book a time with one of us! We’d love to help.

Jon Moore, a member of our Research & Instruction team, has put together this awesome video tutorial that runs you through some of the best new features you’ll find:

Summon Hasn’t Gone Anywhere

We know many folks might prefer the old interface. We get it–folks all have their preferences. But don’t worry, it hasn’t gone anywhere. We’ve given it a name–Summon–and placed it alongside our other primary search tools under the main search box on our homepage. Summon will always take you right back to the full search experience, without the boxes.

We really hope you’ll find that the new search results interface saves you time and clarifies what you’re looking at and what’s actually available to you. We’ll be adding more improvements throughout this semester and over the summer, so if you have any feedback or ideas, we’d love to hear from you! Feel free to leave us feedback.

Happy searching!