Researchers who use the University of Michigan’s Finding Aids site for descriptions and other information about archival collections are in for a new, improved user experience.
The library’s homegrown system has been replaced with ArcLight, an open-source system widely used by academic libraries and archives.
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Finding aids describe the contexts of archival collection boxes or folders, and help researchers discover and request the materials relevant to their work for viewing in designated reading rooms.
The new site is cohesive, consistent, accessible and mobile-friendly, and allows users to more easily search across all collections, or limit their search to just one.
Searches also will produce more related items, since ArcLight will match keywords rather than exact phrases only. Users then can filter those results by repository, collection, creator, date, names, place, subject and format. They can also restrict a search to only those materials that are digitized and available online.
Feedback on the beta version of the new system, which has been publicly available for preview since December 2022, was overwhelmingly positive, with particular praise for the easier-to-use interface, broader search capabilities, and search results filtering options.
Users will continue to use the existing request systems, which vary by partner library, and user accounts remain the same, as does the process for creating one. The content of the finding aids, for the most part, is also unchanged — with new finding aids added as they’re created.
The Finding Aids system includes information about the archives of the U-M Library Special Collections Research Center, the Bentley Historical Library, the William L. Clements Library and others.
