Try Our New Digital Collections Site (Now in Beta)

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!