Announce: Redesigned Web Site for Duke University Libraries

[John R. Little]

The Perkins Library of Duke University introduces our new library web
site.  Improvements to the web site include a new design, better
organization encompassed in six new major categories, and a keyword search
feature that searches 5 of the 7 Duke library web servers (major services
such as E-reserves, Silver Platter ERL, and the online catalog are not
included in the search index).

The new design represents a reorganization of our library web services into
six primary categories chosen to highlight public services of the library.
Some of our services, as you can imagine, are restricted to the Duke
community.  There are also a series of staff pages which are publicly
accessible but are now being updated and revised to follow the spirit of
our new design.  I think the design team did a great job and I am proud to
announce the new design on this list.  If you have a moment check it out
<http://www.lib.duke.edu/>

Also, since there is a current thread on web4lib about how to accomplish
web redesign, let me give a brief overview of how we did it.  The best
advise I can give is to plan, plan, plan, and then implement.  Make sure
you have a user group in mind and plan accordingly.  Stick to your planning
principles and implement your design.  We accomplished our redesign with a
team of librarians and library staff.  The Team discussed and debated
several different design options before we finally settled on our current
version.  Then we identified who would maintain each page and we tested the
pages in our environment.  One part of our testing phase included using
student volunteers in a focus group setting to critique our design.

The planning process took several months to conceptualize and implement.
As the Web Developer, I assembled this team and asked them to focus on
using web technology to deliver library services to the Duke University
community.  Specifically, the team restricted it's efforts to interface
design issues by focusing on improved organization, ease of navigation, and
readability.  We also wanted to create a design that could accommodate
expansion for future services.  Although, planning took several months it
made implementation easy.

--John---------------------------------------------------------------
  John R. Little       Web Developer/Systems Librarian 
  Perkins Library * Duke University * Durham, NC       
  VOICE: (919) 660-5932            Email: jrl at duke.edu 
              http://www.duke.edu/~jrl/