Talis Aspire Ideas Portal
Currently, if a student wants to view the library availability of a print resource they need to click the title.
This is not entirely obvious! Students who do not know to do this may think the item is simply not available at all if there is no button.
Please add a 'View availability' button to print resources that are held in the Library / have an LCN in their metadata, which would expand the resource record, the same way clicking the title does.
This would create consistency with 'View Online' buttons, substantially enhancing the user experience for students.
This will also make it more obvious (at a glance)
to librarians, which resources on lists are not currently available / linked to the catalogue and need purchasing/linking to the catalogue
to list creator, when a book they wanted purchased is now available / held
Is it possible to have the 'View Availability' button appear in a different colour to the 'View Online' button? It will help distinguish between the two at a glance, which we believe would be very helpful. Thank you.
I agree there is confusion due to the button being activated differently to what was originally envisaged, and without wider consultation or testing.
The button needs to be changed so it only appears for print items held by the library.
To make this clearer, and the button more concise, I suggest changing the wording to: 'FIND PRINT'
I am afraid the new VIEW AVAILABILITY is causing a lot of confusion with our students with multiple reports of broken links associated with print resources where this button is displayed. It’s too similar to the VIEW ONLINE button. I suggest it's amended asap to include the word PRINT – so PRINT AVAILABILITY. This will avoid the ongoing ambiguity.
Many thanks
Nick Gates
University of Southampton Library
I agree with Sarah that the View availability link should show only where there is an LCN, so the 'at a glance' scan inidicates resources the user can definitely access.
Also I'd prefer to see 'view availability' than Google preview (if there is an LCN) in the results list. The Google preview would show up if and when the student clicks to view more.
It's great to see this feature and thanks to Talis for responding to the request.
If I am understanding it correctly, it should - theoretically - mean the Google Preview button now only appears against items not in the catalogue. Yet I am still seeing many instances of the GP button against items we do have (clicking the title reveals this). Does this happen for items that have been added in a particular way, e.g by not using the bookmarking button to harvest the metadata from the catalogue/discovery record?
It's just so I can update our FAQs and perhaps tidy up lists as needed.
Kia ora Scott, thank you for activating this feature.
However, I notice the 'View availability' button is appearing even when an item does not have an LCN / is not held by the library.
Would it be possible for the button to only appear when an LCN is added to the metadata of the item --- replicating how the 'View Online' button only appears when a web address is added to the metadata.
The idea is to make it clear to students, librarians, and lecturers which print items are held and which print items are not held!
This has been released today and a Talis Aspire Release Notice issued
We we look for implement this as part of our continuous improvement features in 2023/24
Agreed. At the moment when you skim a list it looks as though items with a 'view online' button are available and items without are not.