Here is a series of blog posts that will provide you with news about improvements happening to the Cochrane Library. Daniel Shanahan, Product Lead of the Cochrane Library, tells us more about what has been worked on and what is coming up.

The Cochrane Library was relaunched last August to help improve the dissemination of Cochrane evidence, and provide a platform for innovation. Since then the product team (Dan, Viola, and Graham) have been working to fix some issues that weren’t quite right at launch and start building some of the new features that will move the Cochrane Library into its next phase. All of these fixes and updates are linked to the five key product themes for the Cochrane Library:

• Discoverable
• Accessible
• Credible
• Usable
• Sustainable

We wanted to send a quick note to introduce you to some new features and functionalities we have implemented during this time (as well as some of the old issues we’ve been working to resolve).

We have fixed lots of bugs, including a quite a few related to access - most notably, we have migrated to a new API for authentication and authorization of users, to ensure that our evidence is always accessible. [Sustainable]

The Updating Classification System has now gone live for the first Cochrane Review Group – Infectious Diseases. You can now see at a glance if a review is up to date, likely to be updated in the future, or does not need updating at the current time. Available as both a filter on the search page and from the article page itself, it is very neat way of keeping our readers up to date. We are giving some time for the dust to settle before expanding this across other CRGs. [Accessible]

Working with Cochrane UK, we now highlight the number of clinical guidelines that a Cochrane Review has informed, as this is a key impact metric for Cochrane evidence to ensure that we really are improving global health. These numbers will be updated monthly to ensure readers always have the latest information. [Credible]

DOI displays were updated for all Cochrane content to meet industry best practice, ensuring we are adherent to all Crossref guidelines and consistent in our design. [Credible]

We have changed the way reference links are added to articles – this is now done after the article has been published, saving valuable time and ensuring our content gets to users ASAP. Currently, links are available for PubMed and Google Scholar, with Crossref links coming in the next few weeks. [Sustainable]

We’ve made some great changes to make our content more discoverable. We’ve added a related content section for CENTRAL records and expanded the related content for Cochrane Reviews to include Special Collections, providing even more ways for users to explore our content. We’re now working on an exciting new feature to better signpost linked content types for Cochrane Reviews (including CCAs, Editorials, Special Collections and Podcasts). [Discoverability]

There have been further improvements to saved searches, search alerts and search manager. These make search even more intuitive to our users to help drive and refine their strategies to find the right content. [Accessibility]

Browse by Topic and Browse by Cochrane Review Group now apply to all relevant content (Reviews, Protocols, etc), both enriching the browse experience and allowing for future developments, including alerts by topic, etc. [Discoverable]

We changed the citation export function for CENTRAL, closing a loophole which enabled unauthenticated users to systematically mass export records. [Sustainable]

The site now remembers your preferences after accepting cookies, so you will no longer be asked every time you visit Cochrane Library (which got very annoying!) [Sustainable]

As you can see, there has been a huge amount of work done since launch and we are looking to keep the momentum going. We will be providing new updates once a quarter regarding Cochrane Library developments and will have some really exciting things to introduce at the Cochrane Colloquium in October. Come find us at the Cochrane Library stand if you are there, else watch this space!