With the library’s compelling new homepage and its underlying discovery and delivery platform going live on August 7, the Virtual Library Steering Committee has started planning for future enhancements. This week Committee members identified some 30 desirable new features [see them below].

We invite all library employees to contribute ideas for expanding UT’s virtual library. Please send me (llphillips@utk.edu) suggestions before the next VLSC program on August 26.

You are invited to attend our Wednesday noontime discussions in Hodges Library 605. During Fall semester they’ll be on August 26; September 9 and 23; October 7 and 21; November 4 and 18; and December 2.

Suggestions for Virtual Library Enhancement

1. Ability to personalize library home page design
2. Recognition of individual users…(welcome, Cary!) and adding suggested related resources to searches (e.g. others who selected this item also borrowed—or searched—<names of other resources or search terms>)
3. Book jacket image display
4. Process for faculty and other content creators to share it via virtual library (e.g. posting content to iTunes U)
5. Enable users to easily distinguish among formats, editions, and other characteristics where similarities exist among various items
6. Provide audio/video/text samples of content with citations
7. Include table of contents for items in virtual library
8. Provide ability to search ALL library resources (Syracuse model) and add ALL tab to home page search box
9. Provide ability to search all digitized books in the public domain
10. Alert library staff to “database failure” – any time a database is not available for any reason
11. Increase visibility of library homepage to the campus
12. Collect and present more use data
13. Offer context-sensitive help
14. Provide a single list of ALL journals accessible through the library, including open access titles. Show which have library subscriptions, publishers, databases in which they appear, and the journal formats.
15. Enable more cross-database searching
16. List on library homepage today’s (daily) events, workshops, etc.
17. Provide reference service for text message users
18. Enable payment of fines and other library charges over the phone and online
19. Reserve group rooms online
20. Incorporate mapping and instructions to locate items in the stacks
21. Include more search engines than Google
22. Make the library more prominent on the university’s home page
23. Add a Share button like those used in Facebook, MySpace, etc.
24. Enable tagging integration, such as LibraryThing
25. Offer a space for feedback and creative ideas about the library
26. Expand federated searching
27. Incorporate data generated by virtual library into expansion and enhancement
28. Create and publish more multimedia
29. Assure virtual library compliance with ADA values and regulations
30. Make the virtual library available on mobile devices