Project MUSE beta site

Project MUSE has released a beta web site previewing its combined digital book and journal content. The beta site will be available until the end of this year, allowing scholars, librarians, and students to become familiar with the newly-enhanced platform before the changeover to accommodate MUSE's forthcoming eBook Collections on 1 January 2012.

The beta site is said to showcase Project MUSE's sophisticated new cross-content, faceted search functionality, and allows browsing of books and journals side-by-side. A powerful new hierarchical subject structure is said to enable users to find the most relevant content, and encourage discovery. Over 300 digital books, from 27 publishers, are available for free sample access on the site during the beta period. The eventual MUSE collections will encompass over 12,000 book titles from the University Press Content Consortium (UPCC), a collaborative of more than 65 major university presses and related scholarly publishers. The beta site is still in active development, with many additional features planned for inclusion prior to January.

Project MUSE's beta site also includes the complete content from the nearly 500 distinguished scholarly journals now available on the current MUSE site. The new search functionality on the beta site provides a search box on every page, with an option for the user to search both books and journals or choose just one content type.