Journal A-Z Lookup... evolved!
BrowZine now supports external journal lookups directly from your library website! Configure any library web page with a simple A-Z lookup box that connects to browzine.com.
This simple box matches against journal title, ISSN or subject without having to resort to a complicated "advanced search" type interface with multiple fields by automatically interpreting what a user is looking for. Users will see their results conveniently appear in browzine.com.
Why make BrowZine the first-stop for journal lookup on your website?
1) Minimize user confusion - Most A-Z systems are built for librarians who understand what a myriad of database names next to each title mean. For many typical end users this provides a point of confusion and frustration. What source should they choose when there are overlapping dates?
2) Fewer clicks to content - A typical end user experience involves:
Title lookup
Source Selection as well as understanding/comprehending what the different source options mean
Understand/Interpret the resulting source (aggregator/publisher platform) to try to find the current issue if it is not immediately presented
Click the current issue link
View tables of contents
With BrowZine this process is highly simplified:
Title Lookup
Table of contents
Since all titles are presented in a uniform manner, the interface makes it easy for users to bounce from title to title without having to retrain their mind on how to interpret multiple interfaces, or choose from a number of sources for the same material.
3) Rich browsing experience - BrowZine returns subject results in addition to journal results if a user uses a broad term like "surgery." This allows a user to easily see a host of journals, similar to the ones they are familiar with, presented in a easy-to-grasp graphical format, and scoped to your library's holdings. If a user looks up a specific journal title instead, each journal lists the subject areas under which it is classified, allowing the user to continue browsing for similar titles.
4) High Performance - The BrowZine title lookup typically executes in a fraction of the amount of time of most A-Z systems. When used within BrowZine, it provides predictive capabilities for real-time feedback on your query!
5) Integration into A-Z Systems - As seen below in the Sample Lookup, if a user is looking for something not currently supported by BrowZine, we intelligently route the query to your A-Z system, just like your external lookup tool does today! But if they are looking for one of the tens of thousands of supported BrowZine journals from the world's top publishers then they will IMMEDIATELY get to the tables of contents of that title, or see multiple matches within BrowZine.
Sample lookup form examples:
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Thus, for the majority of user searches they will get to content faster and be immersed in the easy to use BrowZine interface. However, if someone is looking for a non-BrowZine enabled title, the experience will be exactly what it is today - that they will go on to your existing A-Z system which will route them appropriately to where that content is available. This workflow is depicted in the workflow below:
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Advanced: Using quotation marks to ensure Exact Match
You can also use double quotes (i.e. "cell") which will result in ensuring a more precise exact match to further streamline both the exact lookup and searching directly in BrowZine as well.
For example, if you are looking for the journal Cell and search for that using the external search, provided your library has additional titles available you would likely see dozens of additional titles with “Cell” in the name. Because of this the condition for a “single title match” to forward directly to the table’s current issue as described in scenario #1 above would not happen.
However, by putting Cell in double quotes, this behavior indeed would occur, saving you an additional click to get to the table of contents for that journal.
BrowZine External Search Demo:
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Your BrowZine library ID is the number that shows up in place of <library_id> in the URL below:
Format: <http://browzine.com/libraries/<library_id>/subjects>
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To customize the form HTML for your library, simply replace the red <library_id> values in the code below with your numerical library ID.
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