What was decided upon? (e.g. what has been updated or changed?) Drop down menu will limit search by scope (all resources, library catalog, articles, course reserves, Worldcat)
Why was this decided? (e.g. explain why this decision was reached. It may help to explain the way a procedure used to be handled pre-Alma) 61.7% of 891 respondants thought a drop down option to narrow searching was helpful. Among the points made in the committee discussion: (1) students felt “catalog” alone was confusing, as opposed to “library catalog”; (2) Once you are on the ILS user interface, you are not looking for anything but resources (don’t put extraneous items like news here). Survey participants’ comments expressed significant confusion over what each option means and the distinctions between them. Comments also indicated a strong desire for a streamlined search interface where one could simply type in keywords and search everything by default without the distraction of options, refining their results as needed afterwards; Google is cited as an example. The top choice was made “all resources” for this reason. Other responses from the survey: • Worldcat is heavily used; • “Catalog” confuses users and needs to be explained; • Databases is useful if the search is database content, not titles; • “Catalog + Databases” is confusing to the user who may think they are not searching the databases in the catalog at all; suggest removing this option.
Who decided this? (e.g. what unit/group) User Interface
When was this decided?
Additional information or notes.