by Jessie Zairo on Aug 4, 2020
Aspen Discovery announced this week that the 20.11 release is available. This major release includes 2 new features, 46 improvements, and 2 minor changes.
Mark Noble, Aspen Discovery Developer, recently commented on the release:
We are thrilled to work with EBSCO and our partner libraries to introduce support for searching EBSCO EDS within Aspen Discovery. This functionality helps public libraries make effective use of their articles and databases and unifies the search experience for academic libraries. The introduction of this functionality marks a significant new chapter in the evolution of Aspen Discovery.
EBSCO EDS integration
- Add a new module for EBSCO EDS
- Set up a search type for EBSCO EDS and load search indexes from the EDS profile.
- Searching EBSCO, Aspen will present results from EBSCO EDS including relevant information for a patron to decide what resources are most relevant to them. Results can be faceted, limited, sorted, and paginated.
- When searching the physical catalog, results from EBSCO EDS will be shown in the Explore More bar based on the category of the materials to encourage patrons to find additional resources.
- Show Research Starters within search results and allow users to dismiss research starters or hide all research starters.
- Create default covers for EBSCO EDS records
- EBSCO EDS results can be added to lists
- Allow Browse Categories to be created from EBSCO EDS search results
- Allow Collection Spotlights to be created from EBSCO EDS search results
- Aspen Usage Dashboard now includes number of searches done in EBSCO EDS
- New dashboard to show the number of users using EBSCO as well as counts of records used and clicked on
Combined Results / Bento Box Display
- Results from multiple sources can be shown in a "Bento Box" so patrons can easily get results from multiple sources at once to get an idea of the breadth of the collection offered by the library.
- The sources shown can be customized by the library. The library can also customize the order of display. Available sources include Library Catalog, EBSCO EDS, Lists, Open Archives, DP.LA, Website, and Genealogy.
Accessibility Updates
- Add ARIA Landmarks to pages
- Add H1 heading to all pages
- Correct Heading hierarchy for all pages
- Make sure default colors meet accessibility guidelines
- Add automatic checking of color contrast within the Theme Builder and prevent the user from saving colors that are not accessible (contrast less than 3.5).
- Update Advanced Search to be accessible
- Add labels to buttons that have icons on them for use by screen readers
- Update IDs for Go button within range facets and make the "From" and "To" Labels unique
- Replace red and green items with an accessible color
- Add labels for tabs within Checkouts and Holds pages
- Make sure forms have a good label
- Give a unique label to Koha contact form elements that are part of sections
Account Integration Updates
- Update display of success & failure messages when updating patron information to display more reliably.
API Updates
- Update Anode API and List API to return json header rather than text header
- Update retrieving lists to use a 0 based start index for consistency
Collection Spotlights
- Disable manual creation of collection spotlights from collection spotlights page in favor of creation from searches and lists
Genealogy updates
- Add a module for Genealogy to make it easier to turn on and off.
- Make the generic image for a person record larger.
- Add genealogy results to explore more.
- Allow Browse Categories to be created from Genealogy search results.
- Allow Collection Spotlights to be created from Genealogy search results.
Koha integration updates
- Aspen Discovery can now automatically strip non-numeric characters from phone numbers when a patron updates their profile information or self-register.
- Move option to disable and enable auto-renewal of checkouts from Checkouts page to My Preferences page.
Library and Location updates
- Location Hours can now include notes for a time period to give patrons additional information.
Open Archives updates
- Change search source in the drop-down from Archives to History & Archives
- Clicking on Open Archives records will open them in a new tab
- Track clicks of Open Archives records from Browse Results
- Update Open Archives dashboard to:
- Include a summary of all collections
- Include the total number of views of all records
- Include the total number of clicks on all records
Search updates
- Update to load valid search indexes dynamically when the user selects a new search source.
Theming updates
- Add automatic checking of color contrast within the Theme Builder and prevent the user from saving colors that are not accessible (contrast less than 3.5).
- Show the correct default values from base theme(s) when a theme extends another theme.
- Add the ability to theme button used to Show Editions and make the default colors accessible.
- Add the ability to theme tool buttons and make the default colors accessible.
- Add the ability to theme the body of panels.
- Add the ability to theme links.
- Correctly apply Sidebar Highlight color, Header Button color, and Body Text-color within Themes.
- Change Due soon and Overdue displays to labels with a colored background
- Updates to improve theming of advanced search to not show background in the list of facets
- Update Advanced Search to use bootstrap rather than a table for display for a better responsive display.
Translation updates
- Streamline information about how Aspen generates hold notifications on the hold success popup to match how they are displayed on the hold form.
- Increase the maximum length of a term that can be translated.
- Translate additional terms for PIN resets and PIN recovery.
- Translation when the user does not have access to a page.
- Translation when the user does not have access to a list.
- Translate additional page headers.
Other changes
- Remove unused values from config.ini
- Updates to remove warnings in IE10
Read more by Jessie Zairo