[WEB4LIB] Re: Library home pages

[Andrew Mutch]

Bob,

> Andrew makes many good points (as usual), but I disagree with the last
> statement.  I think separate "home" pages leads to confusion in an academic
> setting (perhaps it's appropriate for public libraries?)

Thanks for the compliment and let me clarify my point [I knew that one was going
to come back and bite me!]
I didn't intend to suggest that a library should have multiple home pages ... you
should have one ... and it would probably be the slick-glossy that the outside
world sees when they visit your digital presence on the WWW.  However, in your
library, you would probably have your browsers point to some other page, like a
portal page, instead of your home page.  The same would apply for remote users.
But, like you pointed out, all should be interlinked in some way or another so
that users can access information from any and all pages.  As libraries' digital
presence continue to expand beyond basic library "home" pages and on-line
catalogs, we will need to master the concepts of information architecture to
ensure that our users don't get lost in a maze of pages.

Andrew Mutch
Library Systems Technician
Waterford Township Public Library
Waterford, MI


> .  Our students
> access the library home page from the libraries, from their dorms, and from
> off-campus;  sometimes because they need an "information gateway [or
> portal] to library resources," sometimes for a "directory to information
> about the library," sometimes merely because they've become familiar with
> it as a place to begin research.  I think it's a mistake to assume the
> locale from which they access us is related to the information need.
>
> Having a common front is an important part of the seamlessness which can
> make a site useful -- do we really want a user to have know where to find
> library hours or the link to Lexis-Nexis or whatever from three (or more)
> separate places?  If we librarians do our job properly and well, we should
> be able to point to it all from one entry point.
>
> Bob Duncan
>
> ~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`
>   Robert E. Duncan
>   Systems Librarian
>   David Bishop Skillman Library
>   Lafayette College
>   Easton, PA 18042
>   610-330-5156
>   duncanr at lafayette.edu
>   http://www.library.lafayette.edu/