University Libraries

Now that the semester is winding down, university library IT will resume the spring cleaning of our library catalog (flyers.udayton.edu).  Here are some features our users can expect to see shifting around over the next few weeks and months within the library catalog.

1. Nearby Items- Previously after starting a search and reviewing the search results, you could click on Nearby Items near a book's call number to view a list of books near that particular book on the shelf, without actually going to the shelf to browse. This is a useful search function, however this method is not consistent with how our catalog users searched for similar titles or similar authors by clicking a title or an author. To make this consistent, users will be able to click any call number in our catalog which will open a list of nearby call numbers, but we will remove the Nearby Items links to avoid a duplication. 

2. Formatting - 99% of our catalog is formatted well, but some of our library catalog links do not have a border or they are formatted in such a way that the text is not quickly readable. To disambiguate these links, we will be putting borders around a handful of links or we will move links to a part of the page which is more appropriate for those links to be. 

3. Text to This to Me - Some cell phone carriers continue to be incompatible with our catalog's ability to send book information as text messages to cell phones. Our library is not alone in this problem. We continue to seek resolutions for this problem, however at the moment AT&T is not providing any assistance for why they are blocking the delivery of text messages from the catalog texting feature. Until we can resolve this problem, we will continue to offer our current "Text this to me" service, but it may not work for everyone. 

4. Mobile Browsing - Our new library catalog mobile website is an improvement from our previous mobile website, but there are some aspects which need to be improved. To make our mobile website easier to use we will be making some links/buttons larger. This will make the text easier to read on smaller devices.

Thank you for your patience as we continue to upgrade our web services. If you have any comments about our catalog (good or bad), please share any thoughts at the following link: https://www.udayton.edu/libraries/services/catalog-error-form.php

- Craig Boman, Applications Support Specialist

Image from Creative Commons.