Release of Gale Research Complete Cross-Search

4 min read

| By Lisa Kumar, Gale Product Manager|

I am excited to announce the upcoming release of a new cross-search experience for Gale Research Complete; it will be available for customers beginning December 20, 2023. The cross-search is designed to bring together content across the package, allowing researchers to fully explore the depth and breadth of their Gale Research Complete resources. Users will be able to access topic and work portals, literature criticism, journals, magazines, news, eBooks, primary sources, business profiles, market research, and more in a single set of search results—complemented by tools and features to support efficient research.

The cross-search was thoughtfully developed for both novice and experienced researchers, and we relied on extensive input from interviews with faculty, librarians, and students to form the foundation of our design. You can find out more about what we learned here.

The Gale Research Complete cross-search is intended to:

  • Maximize the value of the research experience by bringing together relevant results from across the Gale Research Complete package.
  • Organize and highlight unique content across subject areas and drive usage of component resources.
  • Provide additional support to users via platform tools, robust indexing, and video tutorials to help guide the research process.

The current Gale Research Complete landing page will redirect to an all-new home page that includes:

  • An easy-to-use, single basic search bar, along with an advanced search and an option to limit results by resource and/or content category.
  • A link to a dedicated Video Tutorials page to support research and use of platform tools.
  • A Featured Collections section highlighting specific resources within the package.

A new Video Tutorials page provides a mix of short videos to assist with academic research and help users productively engage with features like Get Link, Highlights and Notes, and the citation generation tool.

Gale Research Complete will include a newly designed search results page, featuring:

  • More than 10 content categories to organize results and facilitate quick searching, including most-studied Topics, Literature Criticism, Primary Sources, Journals, Business Profiles, Books, Multimedia, and more.
  • Multiple filters to efficiently narrow results to the most relevant content.
  • A Suggested Collections feature that recommends additional resources based on search terms and supports increased usage of component Gale Research Complete databases.

Building the Cross Search: Behind the Scenes with Gale’s Product Development Team

The Gale Research Complete cross-search was created through extensive interviews with librarians, students, and faculty, with the goal of building a search tool that streamlined the research journey while quickly surfacing unique-to-Gale content in this rich resource. Highlights of this process include:

  • Discovery: In this phase, we conducted open-ended conversations with our users that were focused on their challenges and goals while conducting a search, as well as getting a better sense of our users’ behaviors. This research was foundational to our methodology and ensured our users’ needs remained central to the final design.
  • Ideation: Our User Experience team developed several design options based on feedback gathered in the discovery phase; these were discussed internally and with our users to arrive at a working prototype.
  • Usability testing: We wanted to learn if the new design and features were resonating with users and proactively identify and fix confusion areas with the new user workflows. The overall reaction to our prototype was positive, but we found that some changes were needed to clarify cross-search behavior and increase usability before we arrived at the final design.
  • Development: At this point, our engineering team began building the cross-search based on our user-informed design. Even during this phase, we continued to gather feedback from librarians, students, and faculty. We fine-tuned the design and continued to identify potential areas of confusion to address prior to release.

The result of this collaborative effort is the new Gale Research Complete cross-search. Each stage of development occurred alongside the user, with their voices guiding early, intermediate, and final designs. We are confident this new tool will enhance your research experience and fully support exploration of your Gale Research Complete resources. We’re looking forward to sharing it with you!

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