Downey co-presents poster at ACRL

Libraries Fellow Beatrice Downey co-presented a poster at the 2023 ACRL Conference in Pittsburgh in March. Downey worked on the project while she was a Research & UX Intern at Southern Methodist University (SMU) Libraries and co-presented with SMU colleague Rebecca Graff.

The poster—entitled “Database Descriptions: Do the Write Thing”—showcased an update to the SMU Libraries’ A-Z database list’s publisher-written descriptions into succinct statements to better assist users. Prior to the update, database descriptions averaged around 50 words, which were only visible by mousing over them. After the update, descriptions averaged fewer than eight words and were automatically shown, enabling improved access to the library’s collection of nearly 700 databases.