We're thrilled to announce a major update to the Buddhist Digital Resource Center's digital library, BUDA! Explore the new beta version at beta.bdrc.io and share your feedback—it's essential to helping us improve. This update is based on your valuable input, and we're excited to share five key new features.

First, you'll notice a simplified search experience. Like Google, BUDA now lets you type your query and press Enter without needing to select additional settings. We've made the search engine much more intuitive about user intent and it will now return a range of results that are relevant to each particular search query. For instance, if you search on ཆོས་རྒྱལ་འཕགས་པ་ – one of early patriarchs of the Sakya School – the first three results will be: 1) the person record for ཆོས་རྒྱལ་འཕགས་པ་, 2) a biography of ཆོས་རྒྱལ་འཕགས་པ་, and 3) an edition of the Collected Works of ཆོས་རྒྱལ་འཕགས་པ་ selected because it has high quality etexts. The rest of the results will also be relevant and can be further refined by using the filter menu on the left side of the interface. The new search algorithm takes various factors into consideration so that each search will return a unique group of results.

Our most exciting update: phonetic search! Now you can search using how Tibetan words sound, rather than relying on precise spelling. For example, searching for "Jigme Lingpa" or "Jikmay Lingpa" will return the same results as འཇིགས་མེད་གླིང་པ་ or 'jigs med gling pa. This works for place names, titles, and more. Our phonetic search accommodates most of the commonly used styles so there's nothing new for you to learn. It's easy to use—just type the word as you hear it, and BUDA's search will understand.

We've also added auto-suggest, another familiar feature from Google. As you type, BUDA will suggest relevant titles and names. For example, typing "བཀའ་གདམས་" will bring up relevant suggestions including བཀའ་གདམས་གསུང་འབུམ་ཕྱོགས་བསྒྲིགས, བཀའ་གདམས་གླེགས་བམ, བཀའ་གདམས་ཆོས་འབྱུང, and so on. This also works for people's names—typing "འཇམ་དབྱངས་གཞད་པ" will suggest records for the main incarnations and relevant texts by and about one or another of the འཇམ་དབྱངས་གཞད་པ lamas.

The fourth major update to BDRC's digital library that we want to share with you today is the revamped etext environment. We have greatly expanded our archive of etexts, with millions of pages more on the way. A new in-text search bar with contextual results helps you quickly pinpoint the information you need. And improved linkages between etexts and outlines allows you to seamlessly navigate from broad collections to individual texts.

Finally, new interface also restores a feature that many of you have been requesting for some time: browsing mode. BUDA now offers curated bibliographies for all of the major traditions of Tibetan Buddhism and for several topics in Tibetan literature – they are ideal for discovery and exploration. BDRC's expert librarians recently hand-selected these lists of key sungbums and literary classics so you can be confident that they contain many works not included in this feature when you last used it. Furthermore, as an additional convenience to users, the curated lists don't include any copyrighted works that BDRC cannot allow users to view or download in full. We thank the publishers in India, Nepal, and Bhutan that gave us permission to share their publications online, in many cases waving copyright restrictions for BDRC and its readers.

Additional search tips are available directly from the search box, as seen here:

BUDA's new look, feel, and features were a team effort that included the contributions of many readers. We'd like to make special mention of our UI/UX consultant Roope Koski. Roope is a practitioner-engineer who designed Khyentse Vision Project's user experience and worked behind the scenes to improve the user experience of other important Buddhist digital resources. Roope worked with BDRC's CTO Élie Roux for over a year to make the numerous improvements and innovations that you will find on beta.bdrc.io. We also thank longtime BDRC colleague Nicolas Berger – front end specialist – for implementing the new designs.

Please explore BUDA 2.0 at beta.bdrc.io and share your comments with us by emailing help@bdrc.io – or use the feedback icon on the right side of the screen. After we receive your feedback on the new interface we will make the needed refinements and BUDA 2.0 will become the official BDRC interface. At that point we will retire both the current interface on library.bdrc.io and the TBRC legacy site, whose collections haven't been updated in the past five years.

This is the Year of the Snake, a season of shedding skin and unveiling the new. We think our new search interface and reading environment will be welcomed as an auspicious start to a year of transformations. The update to BUDA includes many other new features and bug fixes that you will discover for yourself.