Try Our New Digital Collections Site (Now in Beta)
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Sean Aery On February 11, 2011 · 6 Comments · In Announcements, Interface Features, Website Redesign
Sean Aery On February 11, 2011 · 6 Comments · In Announcements, Interface Features, Website Redesign 
I’m happy to announce the availability of a beta version of our new Digital Collections web interface, the result of the Tripod2 project at Duke. Try it now! It will be available “in beta” for a few weeks at http://library.duke.edu/tripod2/ so you can give it a spin and tell us what you think.
Over the next few weeks, we will be tying up loose ends so we can replace the existing site at http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections.
Features
34,000 items from 22 digitized collections, cross-searchable in a common index. Includes a wide range of formats: photographs, advertisements, books, sheet music and more.
PDF export for items
Save or print a PDF of any item. Especially useful for our sheet music collections.
Zooming & Panning
Zoom in close on images to see the smaller details or read the fine print.
Page-turning for paginated items
Turn through the pages one-by-one or click the strip of thumbnails to jump ahead.
Internet Archive Books
Our site now includes our books digitized and hosted by the Internet Archive (currently over 3,000), including Duke yearbooks.
Better Aesthetics
Inviting, attractive collection homepages and stronger library branding.
Usability Improvements
Many enhancements, including a single search bar and tabbed property browsing.
Blog Integration
Our blog posts about each collection now appear in the collection portals and throughout the site.
Commenting & social media integration
Leave a comment on the site, “tweet” or “stumble” your favorite discoveries, or see others’ links to our items.
Collection Context
For any item view, get information about its digital collection as well as the archival collection encompassing the physical object.
New Portals to Explore
Search or browse materials from multiple collections at once (e.g., through an Advertising portal)
Advanced Search
Combine search terms in multiple fields to form specific queries.
Map & Timeline
Explore the collections via map & timeline interfaces.
Tripod2 Project Background
The release of a beta site is an exciting milestone for Duke’s Digital Collections program. Taking this project from ideation to implementation over the past several months has required an incredible amount of hard work, especially by two developers in the library: Will Sexton and Andy Hull.
More about the design process:
http://blogs.library.duke.edu/digital-collections/category/website-redesign/
Feedback
Your feedback on the beta site is welcome!
http://blogs.library.duke.edu/digital-collections/feedback-beta/
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
6 Responses to Try Our New Digital Collections Site (Now in Beta)
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Congratulations, Sean, Will, and Andy, on a fabulous new interface!
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Duke Magazine and Sean Aery, Duke Digital Coll. Duke Digital Coll said: New beta web interface launched for Duke Digital Collections. Try out the new site! http://is.gd/rXoNGP [...]
I have to echo the sentiment of the previous comment, well done! The interface is great. Looking forward to using it. The search seems to work pretty well.
Ben
Love your new format. Our high school students will be using parts of it for a U.S. History research assignment! I think it will be easier for them to use.
Thanks for your kind words, Jill, Ben, and Jeanette! We’ve got lots of new content and new tricks up our sleeves that we can’t wait for you all to see.
Jeanette, thanks for letting us know your students will be using our digital collections for their research assignment. We’d love to hear more about what they’re doing and what they think about our collections and site.
[...] be completed using our new suite of tools for creating digital collections at Duke, including our newly redesigned web interface. We will introduce some enhancements to the Russian Posters site over the next few [...]