Hi Everyone – it was made clear recently that some folks are unaware of how the databases page on the new website will function; we have in fact re-written the code engine, incorporated the front-end portion into our unified API and presentation layer structure, and re-constructed the database to be more appropriate. There is also, of course, a new back end as well.

All of that being said, people can be sure that the front-end functionality has not changed, but has in fact become more useful. The three interface areas of Search, Title browse and Subject/Type browse remain, as we have always indicated. However, the Search function now performs a keyword search on all / chosen metadata fields including description, title, subject, type, etc. – this new functioning will make it much easier for users who need to locate a given resource by a keyword or term, or who can only recall a portion of a DB title, etc.

Additionally, all results are loaded into the DOM immediately and bootstrap/jquery is being used to sort through the results on the fly, so users will see immediate results as they type / use the interface, there are no page refreshes that need to occur to see results.

If you are staff/fac user currently with access to the page, you are seeing a development version, the new interface is being designed in a separate environment.