description- – Over the past year, the Boston College libraries have been engaged in making available to our users two new resources, MetaLib and SFX. MetaLib is portal/gateway software that allows for simultaneous searching of several databases, as well as some options to customize the interface. SFX technology provides context-sensitive reference linking from citations to extended services. In this article we review the pedagogical, technical, and service reasons for making these resources available. We discuss how we believe these technologies respond to current student use of the library, and how we approached the installation process. We also review the challenges of the installation (both technical and service) and future possibilities.
subjectcollectiondatepublishercreatorformat description- – As the Boston College Libraries prepared to migrate to a new release of MetaLib, a metasearch and portal tool from Ex Libris, the library conducted some informal usability studies on its existing implementation. These studies combined conversations with undergraduate and graduate students about their research style and observations of students conducting searches using MetaQuest. This article reviews the main issues culled from this, focusing on student research style, asking if MetaLib, as an example of a metasearch engine, responds to this need, reviewing the existing MetaLib design issues, and finishes with pointers on where the Boston College Libraries are headed with this product.
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