The newsletter of the Swarthmore College Library

New Tripod expands search results

by Annette NewmanLibrary users now have a new place to start their searches. From a single point, Tripod searches for individual journal articles as well as the tri-college libraries’ collection of books, journal titles, multimedia materials, databases and more. There is no need to decide between searching for books or journal articles first – Tripod now does a simultaneous search of both the regular catalog and many of the article databases. Using the list of facets to reduce choices to specific criteria can produce more precise search results. Similar items are now suggested, like the “Customers Who Viewed This Item Also Bought” feature on Amazon. Related items are also listed.

The new Tripod is a discovery layer, a framework that allows for multiple collections or indexes of content to be searched simultaneously in the same interface. This discovery layer sits on top of the content resources and provides a unified, cohesive interface to search across book and journal article resources. The goal is to reduce the number of tools that researchers must use to gain an understanding of the breadth of content held by the tri-colleges. Read more »

Dirty Data

Trouble for Tripod

Why clean data is important in retrieving accurate information in the catalog.

Elsevier Blinks Under Pressure from Mathematicians

Scholarly Communications

Mathematician Timothy Gowers is the hero of the hour as Elsevier has officially dropped its support for Research Works Act (RWA), which was promptly declared dead by its congressional sponsors. The RWA sought to end mandated public access to publicly funded research in the United States. Who is Elsevier, and why should you care? Read on.