The library is working on a review of Searcher, our branded EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS).

Over the next few months the Library will make a series of changes to Searcher. Some of these will be obvious changes to the look and feel, others may be less obvious ‘back end’ changes.  Whatever we do, we hope, all changes will improve your experience of using Searcher.

We want to make sure we are providing the best discovery solution we can and that you are confident using Searcher to find the books, e-books, journal articles and database content you need for your research and study.

We made the first changes to Searcher on Monday 13th January:

1. We removed connectors. The connectors were what you saw in the third column on the right of the screen.  Our statistics show this functionality was seldom used.  All resources which were available via connectors, are accessible via the database A-Z webpages.

2.  The search results screen now defaults to a two column layout, making the screen less cluttered and results more prominent.

3. On the results screen, the option to limit your search to items from the ‘Library Catalogue only’  appears first.

4. We removed links to ‘Catalogue’ and ‘Subject guides’ in the top navigation bar.

5. And added a link, ‘Library Account login’.

6. We changed the link to your Searcher account from ‘Sign In’ to ‘My Searcher Sign In’ in order to distinguish the link from the Library account login.

BEFORE

AFTER

All changes to Searcher are being made in consultation with representatives from across the various Library teams.  We will publish regular review updates and details of the changes we make to Searcher on the Library blog.

Searcher: http://searcher.is.ed.ac.uk  or use the search box on the Library homepage