[WEB4LIB] Purpose of library websites

[Karen Harker]

This is something our team of Web staff have been struggling.  We have striven to stay within the mission of our library: The Library delivers timely, high-quality biomedical information services meeting the needs of the UT Southwestern community; and our vision:
Give every member of the UT Southwestern community biomedical information that  makes a difference. 

I added the emphasis above to stress that our pages are for our primary clients.  We do have a consumer health information site which we have been trying to squeeze in as a "patient education" site, thus fitting in with our mission and vision.

We do not "dumb down" our site because we assume a moderate level of computer literacy among our graduate and even our undergraduate staff, faculty and students.  However, we do assume a relatively low level of sophistication when it comes to hardware.  This is due to our familiarity with the equipment of our clients, particularly our staff (excluding Library staff), who traditionally are given the oldest pieces.  Because of this, we have kept the level of graphics to a minimun.  The only exception is the home page.  This graphic was developed by the graphics department of the campus and its placement is not negotiable. 

We feel that we can provide a site which is rich in content, yet accessible by most users, no matter what their equipment or level of sophistication.  We have yet to examine our site with ADA requirement in mind, however.

Karen R. Harker
UT Southwestern Medical Library
Dallas, TX

>>> Dan Lester <dan at 84.com> 2/16/99 3:24:30 PM >>>
Here's a really basic question.  What is the PURPOSE of your library website?

Is it to provide services to your users (students, faculty, staff, for an
academic)?  
Is it to market your library to its local community (whatever that is)?
Is it to market your library to the world?
Is it to do something else?

If more than one of the above, what is the mix?


Now, why do I ask?    http://library.boisestate.edu/   has been designed to
serve as useful information to our primary user community, the faculty,
staff, and students of Boise State University.  As such, the design has
been made "idiot simple" at the request of the reference folks, who have to
deal with user training, taking phone calls, etc.  I realize that we could
quibble forever over design issues, how many main categories to have, what
goes in each, etc.  But the selected content shows on one screen at 480x640
(well, the six buttons do), which we feel is very important.  The text is
large enough for our visually impaired readers.  

Anyway, now one of the administrators thinks that it should be "fancier",
with more artsy-fartsy stuff on it.  She happens to like
http://www.fsu.edu/~library/ due to the "pretty things" and the button bar
on the left edge.   I have no problem with button bars, but most of us have
problems with pages you have to scroll just to see a menu of basic choices.  

I don't want to start a flame war, and know full well there is no one right
answer on any of this.  However, I'm trying to get the internal discussion
focussed on what the heck we're doing before getting down some path of
redesign.

One more example you'll love:  http://library.boisestate.edu/indexes.htm 
shows a beginning listing of databases that we have access to via the web.
Some are free, some are not.  Some are ip blocked, some require logins and
passwords, which we handle behind the scenes with authentication.  Anyway,
most think the current layout is wonderful.  One key administrator is
bothered by the fact that if you click on an icon under the off campus
access for university people that sometimes you do NOT have to put in your
ID and PW.  o-)

Private or public comments appreciated.

We do have fun.....

cheers and thanks

dan

--
Dan Lester, 3577 East Pecan, Boise, ID 83716-7115 USA 208-383-0165
dan at 84.com   http://www.84.com/  http://www.idaholibraries.org/ 
http://library.boisestate.edu/   http://cyclops.boisestate.edu/ 
http://www.lili.org/  http://www.postcard.org/ Sent me a postcard of a
library yet?