This talk will introduce the audience to EBSCO’s User Experience (UX) Design Team and explore the iterative design process we use. We’ll talk about the personas we design for and how we use research to inform design decisions. We will also explain some UX best practices and demonstrate how we’ve incorporated those principles into our user interfaces. Finally, we’ll discuss accessibility guidelines and our commitment to making our products more accessible for all.
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) play a vital role in educating and empowering Black and ethnic students and fostering a diverse and inclusive learning environment. To ensure their continued success, HBCU libraries must select collections that reflect the diverse experiences and knowledge of the HBCU communities. However, ensuring library collections reflect this commitment to DEI requires ongoing assessment and strategic development. This proposal outlines a plan to leverage EBSCO subscriptions and resources to enhance the library’s collection in support of DEI initiatives at Tennessee State University. While TSU library possesses a robust collection, there may be gaps in representing diverse voices and perspectives. By strategically leveraging EBSCO resources, the TSU library can significantly enhance its collection to better reflect the institution’s commitment to DEI. This will empower students and faculty with the informational resources they need to excel academically and become well-informed global citizens.
EBSCO Experience Manager (EEM) is EBSCO's portal for Administrative applications. We'll use Single Sign-on to access our ConfigUI application and then will tour the highlights of that application. You'll view the benefits that the ConfigUI offers administrators who wish to self-service their configuration settings. We'll also touch upon our strategy for future development in the configuration space.
Implementing new software as a service platforms take time and effort. This session will review best practices, tips, and general advice on how to work with our implementation team for the best outcome for your institution. We will share thoughts on how best to prepare for the project, general tools and workflows used, pitfalls to avoid, and other general ways in which to optimally stand up the product purchased. Products to be reviewed will include EBSCO Discovery Service, Full Text Finder, Custom Catalogs, Stacks, OpenAthens, and more.
Go behind the scenes with EBSCO Product Managers as they delve into the integration of Linked Data into EBSCO Discovery Service and EBSCOhost to transform research experiences. This session will cover the infrastructure enabling Linked Data, including the new EBSCO Scholarly Graph platform, and the new product features that are enabled through this new infrastructure. Attendees will also learn how EBSCO incorporates user research to discover, validate, and refine new features to improve the user journey on EBSCO platforms.
As research habits and needs evolve over time, our community increasingly focuses on the performance and functionality of software products and integrations used by libraries. Roadmaps can be used as tools to plan, prepare, align and communicate; vendors and publishers balance their development resources between technical debt and innovation, frequently informed by input from their customer base. New, more flexible products allow for libraries and research organizations to implement bespoke experiences, sometimes with their own in-house development expertise. In both scenarios, building the “product roadmap” offers an opportunity for product managers to connect with their users and vice versa. However, gaps in this critical feedback loop can result in ambiguous expectations and a lack of clear communication. In this panel session, presenters will share their experiences recommendations for building a partnered approach to roadmap development. The audience will hear perspectives from library practitioners, consortium development managers and platform product managers, offering a lively discussion of product roadmaps in both the vendor-owned and open source space.
Amanda Ferrante is Principal Product Manager for Identity & Access Management for EBSCO Information Services, focusing on removing barriers to access for researchers and supporting ease of administration for librarians. Her work is informed by the library community’s needs related... Read More →
Director, Acquisitions & E-Resource Licensing, Cornell University
Jesse is responsible for managing Acquisitions and E-Resource Licensing services for Cornell University Library (CUL). Jesse has been involved with the Future of Libraries Is Open project to develop open source software for libraries since 2016 Ask me about Battledecks@ER&L!Ask... Read More →
Wednesday April 30, 2025 3:20pm - 4:10pm EDT
Ballroom D | Ocean1 Sabin St, Providence, RI 02903, USA
The importance of discovery is often brought up in academic settings, but ensuring access is just as vital for connecting patrons with materials. For resources from EBSCO’s Holdings & Links Management (HLM) record service, access takes the form of linking URLs. The details of these links are often dependent on the host, and access issues can arise in collections large and small. The number of links and potential problems scales upwards as an institution adds more collections to HLM. Manually testing URLs is a proactive method of ensuring access, as patrons finding a nonfunctional link may just move on to another resource instead of submitting a ticket and waiting for a resolution. This presentation is concerned with breaking down different types of access issues The University of Alabama has encountered and exploring tools used for more efficiently and precisely troubleshooting access problems in HLM records as well as the importance of communication with electronic resources personnel from a metadata perspective in addressing access problems and establishing more streamlined workflows.
The Five Colleges use a variety of FOLIO integrations to extend and enhance FOLIO. This includes integrations for reporting, automated user loads, and tools to enhance staff user creation, batch changes and custom reports. We will talk about the reasons we have employed these integrations, the tasks they assist us with and challenges we have faced.
Widener University libraries consists of 3 libraries, each on a separate campus – the main campus is in Southeastern Pennsylvania, with two Law School campuses, one in Delaware 20 minutes from the main campus and the other in Pennsylvania, about 2 hours away. We migrated to FOLIO from III’s Sierra ILS, after many years with the same library system. We expected that there would be a rather sharp learning curve with many changes to our workflows as we moved to FOLIO. As part of the standard FOLIO migration we met weekly with our wonderful IPM team, meeting often amongst ourselves, via Teams and Zoom. Many of the librarians and staff have never met one another in person, but after many months of regular meetings as well as training sessions, we grew comfortable working together. At some points in the migration there were unexpected hiccups, times when the migration team didn’t stop to hit us over the head and tell us we needed to see our data differently. I would like to focus on some of these hiccups, to hopefully help the next wave of new FOLIO libraries save time and effort.
Participants will learn the necessity of developing multiple workflows, recognizing that no single approach will be perfect, and that flexibility and continuous improvement are key. The session also addresses practical considerations, such as adapting calendar management to better serve diverse student populations, including those with early or late check-outs and part-time schedules. Additionally, it highlights the critical need for data cleansing before migration, including addressing common errors like misspelled names and managing order record fields effectively. This talk will provide attendees with practical insights and actionable strategies for navigating an ILS transition, particularly those moving from Sierra to FOLIO. By sharing lessons learned and best practices, we aim to empower institutions to optimize their systems and better serve their communities.
