We are excited to share with you several database enhancements for our El Portal resources releasing in the coming weeks.
Business Insights: Essentials
On June 19th several enhancements go-live on Business Insights: Essentials to improve search and discovery for users. Changes included:
- Improved search relevance results
- New HTML article download option
- New search box drop downs by company, industry, article, and keyword
- Improved home page design with new navigational pathways to get to frequently searched content, like company profiles.
- Restyled profile pages with company information (formerly Related Content) and related articles by subject sections.
- Additional search results page limiters, including: full text only, peer-reviewed only, and publication date.
Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL) Online eBook Browsing
On June 19th, GVRL offers users the ability to read full books in PDF format online. This new online browsing functionality allows users to interact dynamically with and page through the PDF format, which is a reading experience more true-to-print.
GVRL users now have the best of both formats on one award-winning platform—the online ability to search and navigate quickly and leverage features like ReadSpeaker, bookmarking and sharing, article-level download, language translation, citation tools etc.—with the highly-visual original book layout.
Historically, users could only navigate through a title in the HTML (rich text) format or static PDF pages. The new online browsing functionality allows users to interact dynamically with and page through the PDF format, which is a reading experience more true-to-print. It essentially marries the best of both formats—the online ability to search and navigate quickly and leverage features of the GVRL platform like ReadSpeaker, bookmarking and sharing, article-level download, language translation, citation tools etc.—with the highly-visual original book layout.
Mobile InfoTrac Interface
On June 19th, a new, intuitive mobile interface in direct response to customer feedback will be released. No set up is required by libraries to enable this automatic mobile display on smartphones. The mobile interface has been user-tested to support the most common user workflows on Apple, Chrome, and Android smartphones.
Users accessing any of the 57 InfoTrac resources on their smartphone will automatically be directed to the mobile version of the appropriate resource. In the mobile implementation, users will find a cleanly designed search screen. After performing a search, users will be able to explore their results using infinite scroll (as is preferred on mobile devices, they will not need to click through multiple pages of results). Individual documents have been formatted specifically for small screens, so users will not need to strain their eyes or resize the screen to view content of interest, and email functionality will allow users to easily send themselves bookmarked document links for future viewing.
A homepage link allows users to easily switch back to the standard, non-mobile implementation of these resources if that is their preference.
New to In Context Products
On July 2nd, the In Context experience will become even better with a new article recommendation feature.
When a user is reading a reference article, this new feature will suggest additional reference articles available within the same In Context resource by way of highlighted keywords and phrases. Clicking on the link to related articles opens a separate tab containing the new content. Typically, related subjects or articles are found in sidebar navigation or require the user to execute separate queries—by embedding these contextually-related articles throughout the reading experience, researchers of this new tool can:
- Access information more effectively and efficiently
- Critically evaluate a greater number of reference sources
- Understand and incorporate more content in order to accomplish their research task
On July 2nd, this tool will become available within Opposing View Points In Context, Science In Context, Student Resources In Context, U.S History In Context, and World History In Context. It will automatically begin engaging users but is configurable as optional within the Gale Admin tools.
Also available July 2nd is EZproxy. This functionality allows libraries, teachers and researchers to bookmark URLs from within resources and be automatically authenticated back into the document at a later date—perfect for integrating library resources into curriculum and coursework by way of learning management systems (LMS).