[Eril-l] Cambridge adopted the same bad platform as Taylor & Francis?

[Pennington, Buddy D.]

The branding item is quite interesting. I had not considered that the push for libraries to brand these third-party sites would increase user confusion and frustration.

My take on the changes, which is purely speculation, is that publishers are attempting to both make their interfaces easier to use for the average user through design simplification and future proofing the interfaces for increased mobile/tablet use. Is it the best move right now? I don’t know. All design decisions have tradeoffs.

Buddy Pennington
Director of Collections and Access Management
University of Missouri--Kansas City
308 Miller Nichols Library
800 East 51st St.
Kansas City, MO 64110-2499
penningtonb at umkc.edu<mailto:penningtonb at umkc.edu>
816-235-1548
UMKC Libraries<http://library.umkc.edu/>

From: Eril-l [mailto:eril-l-bounces at lists.eril-l.org] On Behalf Of Steve Oberg
Sent: Monday, September 19, 2016 2:06 PM
To: eril-l <eril-l at lists.eril-l.org>
Subject: Re: [Eril-l] Cambridge adopted the same bad platform as Taylor & Francis?

First, a tangent: It’s interesting how posts like this get posted here as opposed to, e.g. SERIALST. This is _not_ a criticism, only an observation.

Second, another slightly less tangential aspect: I’ve noticed confusion on the part of our users when a journal publisher has the usual “Access is provided by…” statement. The confusion is that this implies everything on the site is available to our users. So when users try to access an article in an unsubscribed journal on a publisher site, they wonder why they can’t get to it. I understand the mechanics of the whole setup but it is indeed confusing.

Third, I’m quite happy that publishers are paying more attention to mobile access. (I’m not sure if that’s a major factor behind T&F and Cambridge’s changes per sé, but wouldn’t be surprised if so.) All signs point to mobile usage eclipsing desktop usage and publishers and content providers would be foolish to ignore that well documented trend.

Steve

Steve Oberg
Assistant Professor of Library Science
Electronic Resources and Serials
Wheaton College (IL)
+1 (630) 752-5852

NASIG Vice-President/President-Elect
[cid:image001.png at 01D2127F.E4688F90]

On Sep 19, 2016, at 1:28 PM, Kelsie Crawford <kcc at UGA.EDU<mailto:kcc at uga.edu>> wrote:

The layout seems very similar to the mobile versions of their websites many companies use (for which I'm thankful my phone has the 'request desktop version' option). Are these new websites designed for the mobile/tablet crowd? It makes me wonder if companies are dropping desktop versions completely.

Kelsie Crawford
Electronic Resources Assistant
Acquisitions & Serials Services
Univ. of Georgia Libraries
Athens, GA


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