On March 28, Fraser Hall Library’s KnightScholar Services Team released a newly redesigned homepage for KnightScholar, SUNY Geneseo’s institutional repository. The team worked closely with Digital Commons support specialists over a period of seven months to create the redesign.
The team focused on making it easier for users to engage with KnightScholar’s collections. Three large blue buttons were added to the homepage, leading users to three distinct services of KnightScholar:
- Repository: Archival database sharing works produced by SUNY Geneseo community. Add your works by submitting them here or emailing knightscholar@geneseo.edu
- Digital Collections: Curated collections of digitized materials from the College Archives, Special Collections, and campus units such as GREAT Day posters and the James W. Kimball Traditional Music and Dance in New York State Collection
- Published Works: Editorial and publishing support for original works by SUNY and SUNY Geneseo authors like Gandy Dancer magazine and Milne Open Textbooks
The KnightScholar Services Team also added a new “Featured Collections” area on the homepage as another strategy to increase visibility of the collections. Within Featured Collections, users can discover and access eight collections that showcase some of the most recent exemplary works added to KnightScholar.
Additionally, the team focused on making the KnightScholar homepage cleaner and easier to use. In the upper navigation, links to Policies and FAQs were relocated to the left-hand side navigation in the “Author Corner” section, leaving behind only links for (1) Home, (2) About, and (3) My Account. Changes were also made to the layout and color of the side navigation menu, and the overall font size was increased across the website for easier readability.
A new feature, called the Discipline Wheel, was added to the homepage above the Readership Map. This enhancement adds an additional method of engagement with KnightScholar materials by allowing users to browse works by discipline. The Discipline Wheel also helps increase discovery by connecting users to institutional repositories beyond SUNY Geneseo.
Have you taken a look at the KnightScholar homepage and its collections? Let us know what you think! Contact us at KnightScholar@geneseo.edu
