ASM International (ASM) serves the materials research, reference, and education needs of engineers, scientists, and technicians through articles, books, databases, industry news, education courses, and international events on current engineering practices and scientific research in the development, manufacturing, testing, modeling, and application of engineered materials.
The ASM Digital Library, launched in 2019, offers a single gateway to ASM’s authoritative materials information resources and marked the first stage in a multi-phase migration that will create an integrated and unified platform for ASM’s users.
The goal of the migration was to design and develop a unified hosting solution for ASM’s more than 300,000 content items (articles, chapters, data sheets), enabling users to seamlessly move between content sets and discover the full value of ASM’s offerings. (To learn more about ASM’s strategic vision in unifying platforms, watch Scott Henry’s presentation at Platform Strategies 2018.)
As part of the migration, the ASM Digital Library received a user interface overhaul to come in-line with their organizational site. Typography, colors, and logos were tweaked throughout the discovery & setup processes, allowing for alignment with ASM’s branding vision while maintaining platform and theme functionality.
ASM sought a platform that could not only deliver their flagship ASM Handbooks with skill, but also the full spectrum of ASM’s digital library content. ASM also publishes eight materials databases, three magazines, several ebooks & conference proceedings, and eleven journals. During the discovery phase, Silverchair and ASM agreed on concepts for what this final, all-in-one platform would look like.
ASM is home to one of the largest published standards in the field, the ASM Handbooks, which were the first content materials migrated to the Silverchair Platform. These 23 volumes contain detailed definitions of various materials, their properties, performance, and evaluation. The migration of ASM’s Handbooks Online to the Silverchair Platform provided members and scholars with a modern, mobile-friendly reading experience with more advanced search capabilities.
Since ASM’s many content types are currently on multiple platforms, a ‘Search ASM’ bar was added to help users search and navigate to their other content types. All this was achieved in a way that maintains ASM’s self-serve abilities for updates as the full migration progresses.
ASM’s new site provides members and scholars with an easy-to-use, responsive experience. Of note are the large swaths of data found in most Handbook volumes, now easily parsed through with Split View. The team at Silverchair also worked closely with ASM to ensure unique content received special treatment, like the extra-large tables of info on specific material properties.
During conversion, ASM enhanced their content by applying a taxonomy, whose skos file was loaded through Silverchair’s self-serve publisher tools. The site contains numerous integrations related to access, purchasing content, and institutional data. ASM Handbooks Online also features the “You May Also Like” widget, which recommends chapters to signed-in users based on their reading history.
With the Handbooks site, ASM received the Silverchair Platform Tools out of the box, enabling streamlined collaboration as future content migration phases come.
ASM said of the new site, “We are building for the future.” We’re glad to be partnering with them on the journey!
“We are excited to see the ASM Digital Library hosted on the Silverchair Platform, which is unparalleled in the market in its support for the many content types that ASM delivers.”
—Bill Mahoney, CEO, ASM International