• Enhanced product platform—Provides a unified experience across Gale products for you and your users. 

• Upgraded search results—Highlights important evaluative information to support successful user outcomes and help users discover relevant content. 

• Streamlined user interface—Delivers an engaging experience that allows quick access to search tools, relevant content, prominent library co-branding and collaborative features like Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive. 

• Concise product names—Presents a greater understanding of Gale products, what they do, and how they’re used to empower learning

These product enhancements are designed to increase access to library resources online, in the classroom and have a greater impact on user success. Many of the early enhancements are foundational in nature, laying the groundwork for an exciting future of ongoing iteration where user insights are captured and applied with greater agility.  

• Support multiple points of access: As libraries employ centralized search via discovery and other catalog systems, Gale recognizes that users increasingly take different paths into Gale products. The product homepage is no longer the universal starting point. These new, intuitive design modifications empower users to quickly orient themselves within a Gale product, so they can spend less time orientating to the resource and more time thinking critically about the content.  

• Foster digital literacy and enhance usability: Digital resources simplify the research process by consolidating a high-volume of information into online databases, but they also cast a wider net, presenting users with access to extensive amounts of content. This exposure can be overwhelming at times. Gale’s new search UI focuses the experience on the data points needed to help users identify content relevant to their needs, encouraging critical evaluation and selection. 

• Research smarter, not harder: Gale products are predominately centered on users, not tools or content. Product features are carefully selected and designed to drive user outcomes, not detract from them. The thoughtful design promotes a positive research experience by emphasizing elements users find most valuable. This approach is consistently applied across the core Gale product suite, which can be introduced at grade school or grad school or at a point of need for any public library patron. 

• Promote engagement and collaboration: Gale’s new interfaces incorporate a familiar and modern product experience on par with other sites users visit in their day-to-day, designed to build comfort and confidence in traversing a library database. We’ve also incorporated new tools and supports to help make users more likely to choose Gale products. Interactive search tools like Topic Finder are now given more prominence, encouraging further exploration and discovery of content. The new “Explorer” panel highlights “More Like This” document recommendations and other supporting information without detracting from the reading experience. A streamlined and “sticky” toolbar maintains easy access to collaborative features like Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive, so users can continue to engage with Gale content even after they’ve left the product. Coming soon, new innovations such as “Related Search Terms” will make smart recommendations based on other users’ search behaviors. 

Please visit support.gale.com/product-enhancements for a complete list of products that are affected by this release.

The enhancements will roll out in phases beginning in summer 2019. Please visit support.gale.com/product-enhancements to see when each product will receive enhancements.

A sneak preview of the product enhancements will be available in spring 2019. 

No, there will be no impacts to your usage reporting.

No, Gale will continue to deliver the same high-quality content in our products. The enhancements will not impact the content that’s available in products.

Gale is committed to making its products accessible to users of all abilities and to make products universally accessible and user-friendly in conformance with Section 508 standards of the Rehabilitation Act and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 from the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). This will not change as a result of these enhancements. In fact, the enhancements further our commitment to accessibility by maintaining a consistent user experience across our products and empowering ongoing development to ensure equity of access for all users. 

If your library uses a proxy server or if you use a firewall “whitelist,” then you may need to take action. 

We are introducing two new enhancements aimed to ensure privacy and simplify product access: 

• HTTPS mandatory—Secure product access will be guaranteed using HTTPS protocol. This ensures that data between a patron’s browser and Gale products is encrypted, and that the right to privacy for library users is protected. HTTP links will automatically redirect to HTTPS for the foreseeable future, but updating your links by adding the “s” is good practice. The direct URLs available on the Gale support site have already been updated and are available for you now. 
• New, shorter domain names—Gale products will begin answering to *.gale.com instead of *.galegroup.com.  All existing *.galegroup.com URLs will automatically redirect to the new location.

EZ-Proxy/Innovative WAM:  If you use either of these proxy servers, you will need to update the Gale entry in your proxy server configuration so that it reflects HTTPS and gale.com.  We are working with OCLC and III now to develop an updated Gale configuration for you.  Additional details will be forthcoming.

Firewall Whitelist :  If your firewall uses “whitelists” to allow traffic by domain name, you will need to ensure that the new *.gale.com domain is allowed to pass through.  None of the Gale IP addresses are changing. 

The following are recommended actions: 

• Marc Records - If your library subscribes to a product that will receive a modified product name, then it is recommended that you update your MARC Records to accurately reflect the new product name. 
• Product icons – If you are subscribed to a product that will receive a modified product name, it is recommended that you utilize updated product icons that reflect the new product name. 
• Marketing materials – If you are subscribed to a product that will receive an enhanced user interface or a modified product name, it is recommended that you utilize updated marketing materials that accurately reflect these changes. 
• A-Z list – If you are subscribed to a product that will receive a modified product name, it is recommended that you update your A-Z list to ensure that Gale products can be located quickly and easily. 
• Subject guides – If you are subscribed to a product that will receive a modified product name, it is recommended that you utilize updated subject guides that reflect the new product name. 

Yes, training materials will be available for products that are receiving enhancements. Customers will receive email communications with training information prior to each phased release. Visit support.gale.com/training/webinars for a complete list of webinars available for specific resources.

Our research shows end-users are less likely to recall many of Gale’s current product names compared to other library and internet resources. The length and complexity of many product names simply made them more difficult to recognize and recall, adding an unnecessary barrier for libraries seeking to drive more first-time and repeat usage. This new brand strategy emphasizes Gale first, which when repeated alongside shorter, more descriptive words, leads to a 3x increase in recall. While name changes can create brief adjustment periods for more frequent users, over time, the increased recall and recognition should correlate to increased usage.

The User Experience, Market Research, and Marketing teams explored every aspect of these enhancements with users and customers through multiple phases and methods of research over the course of two years. Ultimately, our choices were refined and validated quantitatively through surveys to nearly 2,000 U.S. students in high school through post-doctorate and hundreds of library customers, and paired with qualitative feedback across 100+ design assessments, focus groups, and individual interviews. This extensive body of data allowed us to tailor our enhancements to user habits and preferences while also addressing common library challenges.