Fresh new look, same great Bookshelf!
We love Bookshelf, you love Bookshelf, but that doesn’t mean we don’t strive to make every interaction better and more intuitive. Reading your textbook should only be as complicated as the material at hand and should be aided by the tools you use. As a result of customer feedback and an analysis of design trends, we have made some design updates to the Library, and the reader, to improve the user interface to give you the best reading experience.
What exactly is changing?
Most updates are stylistic to improve the overall functionality of Bookshelf. You’ll notice the following changes:
| Slight Makeover | New to Bookshelf | Removed from Bookshelf |
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The redesigned Notebook in Bookshelf Online
Wait, no main menu?
Yes, you read that correctly. We moved all the items in the main menu within the product to line them up the more closely to their related functions. One example is our moving of sharing of notes and highlights, and the creation of new highlights to the notebook, which is a much more natural place for this feature. Please see detailed transition information below.
The changes are great, when will this be ready, and does it affect me?
These changes will be going live to Bookshelf and all branded versions of Bookshelf in early November.
Library Window Updates
Library Filters
We have moved the library filter from the top right of your screen to the top left next to the filter bar. We have also combined the three filters we had (All Books / Recent Activity / Grid vs. List View) into a single dropdown. This drop-down has added filters for users looking for their assignments.
Current Library View: Arrows denote new placement
New Library View: Note new dropdown and filter placement.
Library Search
Design updates only here. No functionality changes.
Old Library Search
New Library Search
Head Drop Down
Added Give Feedback on the menu.
Navigation Updates
Left Navigation
We moved Bookshelf Online's icons moved rearranged their positioning. We have also added a Settings panel and removed the main menu. To close panels, click on the highlighted icon used to open.
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Old Navigation Panel |
New Navigation Panel |
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Bottom Navigation
We rearranged the icons and updated the zoom and bookmark icon.
Old navigation ordering: Bookmark, enter the page number, fast highlight, zoom, print, cite, and link.
New navigation ordering: Enter page, bookmark, scrubber, print, zoom, fast highlight, cite, and link
Zoom: Has a new icon 
Table of Contents
We updated both the design and behavior of this panel.
Current Table of Contents: Clicking on the chapter title (not the arrow), navigates you to the top of the selected chapter. Clicking on the arrow next to the chapter title drills you down to the content, but it does not navigate you to the chapter. Clicking on the subsections navigates the user to the subsection. If someone wishes to go to the top of the chapter, they need to navigate back to the previous screen and click on the chapter title.
New Table of Contents: Adds search. Removes need to click on the tiny arrow within the table of contents to drill down to the subsections of a chapter. Instead, clicking on any chapter with an arrow (indicating chapter subsections) will move the contents to the next level. The user will not automatically navigate the user to that section in the reader. The user will need to click the blue "Go to Chapter..." link at the top of the panel to navigate to that section of the reader. If a chapter has no arrow (no sub-sections), clicking on that line item will automatically navigate the user to that section within the reader, and the panel will not change. To close, click on the Table of Contents icon or open another panel.
In Book Search
In addition to design updates, note we removed all book search and notebook search from this panel. To search all books, go back to the library. To search the notebook, go to your notebook.
| Old Book Search | New Book Search | |
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Notebook
In addition to design updates, adding and removing highlight markers and sharing has moved into the notebook. Filter and sort are now one filter that includes new sort options. Print your notebook (via a printer, into a pdf, or export to OneNote) have moved to the bottom of the panel. Review mode icon has changed as well.
| Old Notebook | New Notebook | |
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Figures
In addition to a design update, figures will initially be broken down by chapter. Bookshelf Search will only be available on the initial screen. Once a user drills down on a specific chapter or section search is no longer available.
| Old Figures | New Figures | |
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Labs
Design update only. No change in functionality
| Old Labs | New Labs | |
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Settings
To start, we have our Read Offline information and the ability to send yourself a text message that will sign you into our native applications. We will add additional settings for future updates.
Main Menu
Due to redundancies throughout the application, we are removing the Main Menu. Here’s where you can find each of the items in this menu.
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Wow, that’s a lot of changes! Any other updates coming soon?
VitalSource Bookshelf is always working towards improving the user experience. Our native applications will soon be coming out with a similar look and feel. As always, we will keep you posted with release information as our product progresses.
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