ScienceDirect release

On Saturday, August 25, we released on ScienceDirect the following enhancements:

Redesign of article page now complete

• The HTML article page redesign that began in January is now complete. You may recall from the January 2012 release the newly redesigned left and middle panes. The final phase of this redesign introduced the third pane which provides users with enhanced access to– domain-specific and contextual – information. As a result, the redesigned article page devotes more of the space to the article itself providing, a more readable, user-friendly HTML version, improved navigation and enables additional - domain-specific - functionality and content.

View chapters in context of entire book

• Book chapter pages are redesigned in line with the article page redesign. In addition, users find a table of contents and a search box in the left pane allowing them to search and browse the entire book. The new functionality provides immediate insights into how the selected chapter relates to the whole book, without interrupting the research workflow.

Improved browsing

• Browsing on ScienceDirect just got better with a cleaner look and feel and improved filter options available on “Publications” from the top navigation bar (recently re-named from “Browse”). The update ensures a better experience for users interested in seeing their entitled and non-entitled journal and book sources available on ScienceDirect.

New name for volume/issue alerts

• Journal/Book-series Alert is the new name for the previously called Volume/Issue Alert.

Responding to recent pain points:

• Following recent issues with RSS feeds on ScienceDirect, the service has recently been migrated to a new platform resulting in more speed, stability and data accuracy. Some minor display issues remain but please rest assured that we are working diligently to address these in upcoming releases.
• Image search is refined to exclude tables from the results list. This provides users with a more efficient way of finding relevant images to learn new concepts, prepare manuscripts or visually convey ideas in presentations and lectures. Tables may still be easily located within the article outline available from the left pane of the newly redesigned article page.
• Following a release by Adobe, several Adobe Reader X users noticed that the save button was greyed out when opening PDF files within a web browser. While this issue was not the fault of ScienceDirect, we are pleased to report that the issue has now nevertheless been resolved.

Responding to a librarian pain point:

• A previous issue with missing institutional logos and/or banners has now been resolved. The institutional logo/banner or “brought to you by” text will now normally appear on ScienceDirect for the specified IP ranges allowing all users to see that access to ScienceDirect is provided via the library. Once again, we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused in the interim.