[WEB4LIB] Re: Naming a library's web presence

[George Porter]

Jargon -- the life blood of language.  The terminology used in describing or
referring to buildings, websites, organizations... is indicative of intent.


[Ancient, obscure reference alert]  In Zork, the whole point of the tiny,
twisty, etc passages was to disorient the player.

Web terminology, even when very specific, can be horribly mangled and
misunderstood to the point where general usage becomes meaningless.  To
combat this, and because we wanted to have a textual link back to the
Caltech Library System's webserver's default index page, there is a button,
with alt text, labeled "CLSweb Main".  The Institute's primary web page is
given access, again from all pages within the CLSweb, via a button marked
"Caltech Main".  It so happens that the web browsers, Netscape and MSIE, on
the library workstations have the CLSweb <http://library.caltech.edu>
designated as their "Home Page".  Home Page is a browser-specific option,
with the last couple of generations supporting options like Blank Page and
Last Page Visited, in addition to the vintage standard starting place
concept.

While I'm not comfortable with the notion of branding, our web committee,
and the content providers, have taken pains to achieve a visual identity
throughout the website.  A logo, which provides a functional return to the
CLSweb main page, and navigational button bar appear at the top of all web
pages.  There's a standard footer with both mailto and comments form links
for feedback.  A watermark is included on the webpages and the font choices
are circumscribed.  These are all currently achieved through web
editor/server-specific functions, although we're in the planning stages to
achieve the same ends through CSS.  A coherent visual identity is an
important part of the effective presentation of the information on a
website.

George S. Porter
Sherman Fairchild Library of Engineering & Applied Science
California Institute of Technology
Mail Code 1-43, Pasadena, CA  91125
Telephone (626) 395-3409 Fax (626) 431-2681