Lee and Janine -

Thanks for your thoughts on this.  I think that this change (and there are other changes as well) are worth complaining to JSTOR about either as a group or individually.  I am the administrative contact for JSTOR at UD and am in regular contact with my JSTOR person asking questions and making comments about the site. 

I am guessing that this change occurred on November 12 when JSTOR launched ebooks as well as their usual fare of journals.  Changes to the site occurred due to the addition of ebooks, and there was no information or notification about these changes. 

One particularly problematic change (for me anyway) is the icons which are now being used.  JSTOR removed the green icon which indicated full access and now only uses gray icons which indicate either no access or partial access.  So, the user is supposed to understand that if there is no icon, then full access is available.  For me, this is not intuitive.  Users (here at UD) like to see green icons indicating full access.  JSTOR's decision to change the icons means that they (JSTOR) are now advertising what we do NOT have access to instead of what we DO have access to.  I find that irritating.

Now that you have discovered the loss of the "image search feature," it makes me wonder what else got changed that we don't know about.

My two cents.
Susan

On 11/26/2012 8:25 PM, Henri, Janine wrote:
[log in to unmask]" type="cite">

Thanks for bringing this up Lee.

 

I always showed the ‘results with images’ limiting option in JSTOR as a great way for users to browse articles for illustrative content. I hoped that the disappearance of this feature was just a blip when I did not see it last week and am very sad to read that this was a deliberate option. It may have been ‘buggy’ but it was a very special boon to our researchers. Searching the caption is not the same thing at all.

 

I am also disappointed that there was no announcement from JSTOR about this change. (And now I have to revise my various LibGuides where I’ve included the statement “Links on the search results pages allow you to quickly display 'Only Results with Images.'”)

 

I would support either a group or a Society effort to voice our disappointment. Let me know how I can help.

 

Best wishes,

 

Janine Henri

Architecture, Design, and Digital Services Librarian

and Interim Resource Librarian for Urban Planning

UCLA Arts Library

1400 Public Affairs Building

Box 951392

Los Angeles, CA 90095-1392

 

tel: 310-206-4587

fax: 310-825-1303

email: [log in to unmask]

 

From: ARLIS/NA List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lee Sorensen
Sent: Monday, November 26, 2012 10:56 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [ARLIS-L] JSTOR dissolves Image-search feature

 

Colleagues:

 

Some of you may have noticed that JSTOR no longer offers its limit-results-by-image feature.  I for one found this very helpful as pictures in journal articles frequently contained details or unique views of works that were not available elsewhere.  I queried JSTOR on this and their response is in part below.  While they haven’t gotten rid of the feature, it’s a lot more difficult for our visual researchers to both find and use.  The new version limits key-word image searching to the caption.  While this is less “buggy” for JSTOR, is much less useful for most searchers.  The old version allowed broader searches, e.g. articles on Amiens, and then users could scan images.  Now, users must know pretty much what the exact caption of the photo is to find an image.

 

Does anyone or the Society feel that this should be addressed to JSTOR by its users?

 

Lee Sorensen

Duke University

 

 

After doing some digging with my coworker, we've discovered that while the original format for image searching is gone, the ability to search for them is not. We've learned that the original format wasn't always accurate, and often buggy, which is why it was done away with in our most recent update.

 

In order to search within images now, you will need to use the Advanced Search page. The drop-down menus to the right of the search boxes now have a "caption" option. This will return content with images and present you with similar - yet more accurate - search results.

 

 

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-- 
Susan A. Davi
Head, Collection Development
University of Delaware Library

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