Sciwheel is becoming Lean Library Workspace

Technology from Sage is consolidating Sciwheel into its Lean Library offering to launch as Lean Library Workspace. This will provide libraries and their users with an all-in-one offering that supports the entire research journey, from content discovery and access through to authoring work.

Technology from Sage acquired Sciwheel in 2022, with plans to integrate it with Lean Library to provide one uniquely comprehensive research tool that helps reduce student overwhelm when learning new skills and tools for their studies, while maximizing library budgets and time across the tools they support.

We’re excited to share that this is launching as Lean Library Workspace.

What’s changing?

• Sciwheel’s website is rebranding to Lean Library Workspace and the domain is changing to workspace.leanlibrary.com.
• Sciwheel’s Google Docs and Microsoft Word plug-ins are rebranding to Lean Library, with compatibility improvements and enhancements coming next.
• Key functionality from the Sciwheel browser extension has been brought into the Lean Library extension as one all-in tool.

The new functionality that will be available in the Lean Library extension includes:

• Integration with the Lean Library Workspace website (currently sciwheel.com) so users can connect the Lean Library browser extension to their personal Workspace account.
• Ability to save references, create projects, and import citations from the resources users browse online to their personal Workspace accounts.
• Ability to highlight & annotate directly on webpages collaboratively with peers, and save those notes and annotations to their personal Workspace accounts.

What does this mean for Sciwheel users and customers?

Current users can log in with the same credentials for uninterrupted access to their references and projects, with the same familiar user experience they know and love.

Users will need to download and use the Lean Library browser extension instead of the Sciwheel extension, but have until 31^st August 2025 to do so, so as not to cause disruption during any research periods.

By moving to the Lean Library extension, users will unlock new content discovery and access benefits, including:

✅Saving up to 2 mins per search when discovering content online with streamlined access.

✅Unlocking instant and legal access to millions of Open Access articles and thousands of eBooks when hitting paywalls online.

✅Getting email alerts to updates to ‘Table of Contents’ to your chosen journals.

✅Building information literacy skills with article retraction alerts and trust ratings.

Sciwheel customer institutions can also choose to implement the full Lean Library offering to unlock wider benefits including; increasing usage of library content up to 40%, saving an estimated $90k per year with Open Access integrations, and promoting library branding, content, and customizable messages on any domain.

What does this mean for Lean Library customers and users?

Libraries using Lean Library can choose to toggle on Lean Library Workspace for their institution so their users can create personal Lean Library Workspace accounts to:

✅ Instantly discover, access and save resources.

✅ Effortlessly manage references, annotate resources and collaborate on projects.

✅ Write, cite and author work smarter, faster.

This will embed libraries into further core stages of user workflows to gain actionable insights, help reduce student overwhelm, and better support researcher output.

Meanwhile, users of Lean Library’s free offering, Lean Library Open, can benefit from a more limited, freemium account to Lean Library Workspace – even if their institution does not subscribe.

Find out more

Find out more about Lean Library Workspace on our product page and register for our upcoming launch webinar to see it in action.