Location information on library/institution webpages

[Joanna Richardson]

On several occasions I have been asked by our Document Delivery 
(interlibrary Loan) Section for assistance in ascertaining a fax number 
for an American university library.  I won't waste anyone's time 
outlining the time spent/wasted trying to gain such information from the 
respective Library home page.  And frequently the University's home page 
wasn't a bundle of joyous information either!  

Just recently I wanted to phone a fellow librarian at another Australian 
university.  No phone details on the Library's home page, so I had to 
ferret through the University's home page to come up with a n appropriate 
phone number.

Yes, on most occasions the fone/fax/address details are already known by 
our internal audience but what about the rest of the world who also may 
have a need to communicate with parts of your organization?


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Dr. Joanna Richardson                 e-mail:  richardj at bond.edu.au
Information Technology Librarian
Bond University			'phone: +617 55 951401 (07) 55-951401
Gold Coast QLD 4229	           fax: +617 55 951536 (07) 55-951536
AUSTRALIA             http://www.bond.edu.au/Bond/Library/People/jpr/
Normal disclaimers apply
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On Fri, 12 Apr 1996, Steve Clancy wrote:

> What I found, though, is that on many institutional homepages the 
> information was lacking as well.
> 
> -- Steve Clancy
> 
> On Mon, 8 Apr 1996, macneil bruce library wrote:
> 
> > I suppose the reason that most of us don't list the location is that the 
> > Library page is one in a number that are linked to a University homepage 
> > that does have an 'ABOUT the University of ...' section. I know our 
> > Library homepage left the address out because we felt it to be redundant 
> > and because we felt there was other information that was more important.
> > A second reason might be that many of us created homepages for the use of 
> > our own community (students, faculty and staff) and felt that if they 
> > didn't know the address of their own institution, they were in deep 
> > trouble. 
> > If your next question is will you add it to the homepage? I think I'd 
> > vote no because it can be found from the University homepage.
> > 
> > Bruce MacNeil
> > Associate Librarian, Information
> > University of Waterloo
> > Waterloo, ON  N2L 3G1
> > bpmacnei at library.uwaterloo.ca
> > (519) 888-4567 x2112
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > On Thu, 4 Apr 1996, Steve Clancy wrote:
> > 
> > > 
> > > Greetings.
> > 
> > <some stuff removed here>
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Many of the library homepages I visited, and also those of the affiliated
> > > institutions, did not clearly identify the location of the library, i.e.
> > > City and State.
> > 
> > <here too>
> > > 
> > > I've noticed that this seems to be a chronic problem on the WWW in
> > > general, but we in the library world should be more conscientious about
> > > providing complete and accurate information.
> > > 
> > > Some might argue that physical location is irrelevant in the "virtual
> > > world," but I don't think we're quite there yet.
> > > 
> > > Check out your own library's and/or institution's homepage and see if you
> > > can easily tell where it's located (assuming you didn't already know.)
> > > 
> > > Any discussion? Observations?
> > > 
> > > -- Steve Clancy
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
>