This article describes the Project Lefty, a search system that, at a minimum, adds a layer on top of traditional federated search tools that will make the wait for results more worthwhile for researchers. At best, Project Lefty improves search queries and relevance rankings for web-scale discovery tools to make the results themselves more relevant…

That little rectangle with a button next to it? (Those things called search boxes but might just as well be called "resource drains.") Imagine it disappearing from a library's webpages. The intricate works behind these design elements make up a major portion of what library staff spends time and money developing, populating, supporting,…

Describes a pilot computer training program for library staff and patrons at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Reviews components of effective training programs and highlights core computer competencies: operating systems, hardware and software basics and troubleshooting, and search concepts and techniques. Includes an instructional outline and…

Describes the Adonis project, a CD-ROM database of biomedical journal articles that was designed to investigate ways in which publishers could maintain the income they received from publishing scientific journals. User studies are described that were conducted at University College London to evaluate user satisfaction with Adonis searches. (five…