Redesign updates, testing 360 Link
I’ve been hard at work updating the first three external systems to our new web template. EZProxy quietly went live last week. Hopefully you won’t notice! It will only show up if there is a problem. ERMS and I have been testing the link resolver for over a week, and below I have details on how you can test it from the comfort of your own computer before it goes live, May 24th. And the catalog is coming along, but there are so many moving parts I will have a few more days of tinkering before I can start testing.
Testing 360 Link
At long last I am updating us to 360 Link 2.0 with this template change. This is a big boon for two reasons: first, I will no longer have to maintain the 360link Reset script I wrote years ago to reformat the link resolver for usability. (ProQuest redesigned 360 Link 2.0 to look just like ours. No, we didn’t get a discount.) Second, the link resolver includes Index Enhanced Direct Linking, which means that if a reliable direct link to an article exists, users will go right there, bypassing the link resolver. We already have this functionality in Summon, but now it will be available to users coming from other databases or Google Scholar, as well.
If you would like to test 360 Link 2.0, you can do it easily by installing a bookmarklet in your browser, and then any time you find yourself on a link resolver page, click the bookmarklet and it will reload the page with the new template and functionality in place.
Drag the link below to your bookmarks bar:
(Need help? Here are some tips for installing bookmarklets.)
Then load a link resolver page (like this one). Click the bookmarklet in your bookmarks bar, and the page will reload. It should look something like this:
The new template will go live Thursday morning, May 24th. (Exact time depends on when ProQuest’s update cycle runs, which vaires a bit.) After that, you won’t need the bookmarklet to see the new template.
If you see an issue with the new template, be sure to click the “Report a problem with this page” link in the bottom right. That tells us what exact URL you were looking at. Be sure to also tell us what the problem is. “Wrong” is not enough information for us to fix anything. :)
As always, let me know if you have any questions!