Libraries work tirelessly to curate exceptional collections, resources and services to support their users. However, often, these resources are under utilized due to many students and researchers remaining unaware of the full extent of the library offerings – and having to disrupt their usual research workflows to access these offerings.
Lean Library plays a pivotal role in bridging this gap for institutions by embedding library content and services directly into users’ online workflows via a browser extension, whether they were searching on Google, PubMed, ChatGPT or beyond.
2024 was a year of growth and innovation for Lean Library; we welcomed many new library partners (who you can read about in our community round-up post), incorporated librarian feedback into the product, and released brand new features that took users beyond discovery and access through to learning about AI and citation. While building Lean Library’s offering into a fuller, end-to-end research workflow tool, we recognized the need to balance new features with optimizing core functionality as an access broker, so also dedicated significant resource to enhancing performance this year.
As the year draws to a close, it’s the perfect time to reflect on the product’s developments and what our library partners achieved with Lean Library in 2024.
As a division of Sage, Technology from Sage supports Sage’s mission to build bridges to knowledge. This year, libraries around the world used Lean Library build bridges to knowledge by putting their library content, services and resources in front of more students and researchers, while making their lives easier with a tool that boosts productivity, saves time and money, and supports development of information literacy and academic skills.
In 2024, together with our library partners, Lean Library:
Having dramatically increased Lean Library functionality in the last few years, we took the opportunity in 2024 to double down on our commitment to Lean Library’s core functionality and enhancing performance based on feedback from customer librarians. Significant developments and continuous improvements were made “under the hood” to Lean Library in 2024 to improve the user experience and meet the needs of customer librarians.
As a result, the Access and Alternatives functionality now delivers improved performance, providing a more efficient and seamless experience for all users. Examples of these improvements made include:
To learn more about other releases, read the support article here.
Similarly, Lean Library launched a new, refreshed support site to make it easier for customer librarians to search and explore all available support articles, raise tickets directly from the support page, and track progress of the tickets – all to provide an unmatched customer experience and the highest standard of support. 
The recommitment to core functionality did not hinder the innovation that Lean Library is known for, since being the first library solution to bring library guidance and other services into online workflows back in 2021.
In 2024, Lean Library added brand new features to address the ever-evolving needs of libraries, students and researchers. Here are some of the major product releases this year.
Lean Library deepened its integration with scite.ai to incorporate article retraction data into the browser extension. This new functionality flags retracted articles as users access them, helping users assess reliability of resources they use in their research to support their research integrity.
At the start of this year, Lean Library launched Cite; a quick and easy tool that generates and copies references resources users are on to use with any reference manager – whether Zotero, EndNote, Mendeley, Sciwheel, or others. Cite supports both articles and eBooks and librarians, provides alerts when there is incomplete citation metadata, and librarians can select citation styles for their institution. Learn more about Cite here.
With the explosion of AI, students and researchers are increasingly using tools like ChatGPT in their research. To support libraries in navigating this, Lean Library integrated with Sage Campus to surface a free online course, The Art of ChatGPT Interactions, directly through the Lean Library extension when users are on the OpenAI.com domain. Users can complete the course within the extension or in a new tab and earn a certificate upon completion. The integration provides users with academically and pedagogically rigorous guidance right at the point of need as they use ChatGPT, without interrupting their workflow. It demonstrates the value of the library and promotes the academic library as a source of guidance on AI to patrons. Learn more about the integration here. 
Lean Library’s Assist Messages feature surfaces customizable messages from the library on any website. To further streamline the process for time-strapped librarians, Lean Library launched ready-to-use templates of popular and effective Assist Messages that can be toggled on instantly, while still being fully customizable for personalization.
There are some exciting announcements and bold innovations in 2025 for Lean Library, expanding capabilities to take the library deeper into research workflows, boost researcher productivity and support student success. We cannot share the announcements just yet, but in the meantime, here is a taste of what’s in store for next year and beyond:
Deeper insights into research workflows for libraries
Lean Library is further developing the usage stats and insights provided to librarians, with easy export for sharing.
Improvements to Additional Library Search
As requested by our librarian partners, Lean Library plans to integrate with ExLibris Summon for our Additional Library Search feature that will enable more institutions to bring their library discovery layer deeper into their patrons’ workflows. In addition, there will be other targeted improvements made to Additional Library Search to drive more usage of library-licensed content.
Faster, more intuitive set-up in the Librarian Dashboard
As librarians are increasingly strapped for time, Lean Library is investigating ways to provide faster, more intuitive set-up and configuration via our Librarian Dashboard.
Continued commitment to streamlining access to content
Early next year, Lean Library is launching Print Alternatives that will transform how patrons discover print materials by directly integrating into the library’s discovery system, helping bridge the entirety of library resources into patron workflows with Lean Library. And, as always, we will look to continuously improve our access features, focusing on more sophisticated control of Open Athens authentication and new discovery service connections for Alternatives.
Taking the library into the authoring stages of research workflows
Early next year, we will announce new developments to Lean Library that offers users support right through to the authoring stages of their workflows. While we can’t say more just yet, this will be a one-of-a-kind offering for libraries and a game-changer for researchers. Stay tuned!
If you are interested in Lean Library for your institution, request a demo today.
Introducing a brand refresh and new website August 20, 2024
Technology from Sage has launched a refreshed brand and new website on the www.technologyfromsage.com domain. The rebrand aligns the Technology from Sage suite of library products, Talis Aspire, Talis Elevate, Lean Library and Sciwheel, into a visually cohesive suite with a unified brand identity to provide a more consistent customer and user experience.
Technology from Sage’s new visual identity better depicts the ethos behind our innovative technologies and the people that they serve: academic librarians and their patrons. Our products have new aligned logos and refreshed color palettes that build on the product history; for example, the iconic Talis teal color has been brightened to a Talis turquoise and we have brightened the recognizable orange for Lean Library.
The Lean Library and Talis websites have been shut down, and www.technologyfromsage.com is now the sole website for information on Technology from Sage and its products, including case studies, library resources and more.
There will be no disruption to the Sciwheel platform or extension, but the Sciwheel blog previously on the Sciwheel platform will be removed and you can instead find community pieces, user stories and other posts on with the Technology from Sage blog instead.
We recently launched a combined Technology from Sage LinkedIn channel as the hub of information for all our webinars, events, insights and more. Similarly, we launched a Technology from Sage YouTube Channel. We continue to maintain the Talis, Lean Library and Sciwheel X channels for product-specific updates for our customers and users. Follow us there!
The brand refresh is reflected in our products in addition to on our website, social media channels and marketing material for a fully cohesive customer journey. Customers can head to our resources pages on this website to get the logos, brand guidelines and new handy promotional assets to update any of their guidance materials.
Technology from Sage is launching a new Librarian Futures newsletter that shares librarian-patron insights and think-pieces from Technology from Sage and an array of industry partners. Sign up to receive the newsletter here.
Technology from Sage first launched in November 2021 as an umbrella brand for Sage’s portfolio of individually operating technology businesses, Talis and Lean Library.
Technology from Sage has grown significantly in the past three years:
This brand refresh reflects this growth and how Technology from Sage has combined the Lean Library, Talis and Sciwheel businesses into one operating division to benefit from shared services, knowledge and expertise – read more about our values, brand story and product strategy here.
