Library web site organization

[Tim Smith]

I don't know if this is a silly idea or not, but it's something I've been
thinking about and mulling over with some of my colleagues for awhile now,
and I'd like to hear other folks' reactions. From looking at the various web
pages of colleges and universities, it seems that most of us--my library
included--use a pretty traditional "libraryish" model to organize our home
pages: online catalog(s), databases, reference sources, electronic journals,
information about our libraries, pathfinders/subject guides, etc.

This is an arrangement that we are very comfortable with, but which is often
baffling to our users. They are likely to be more familiar with a mostly
subject-based organization such as Yahoo's, for example. And most of us are
doubtless pretty comfortable browsing in an directory like Yahoo or the
Librarians' Index to the Internet, burrowing down to what we want to find,
even if it doesn't follow normal library-like organization.

My question--you surely saw it coming--then is whether it would work to
arrange a library's web site like Yahoo or LII. Rather than splitting
databases, reference sites, etc. into separate categories on the home page,
use a top-level subject hierarchy, with functional or format categories
underneath. I doubt that most of our users think in terms of format first.
It's pretty abstract, and is not entirely satisfactory anyway: where do you
categorize a multi-format database?

Are there any library web sites already doing this? If so, which ones? If
not, why not? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this type of
arrangement as opposed to what we're doing now? I seem to recall a bit of
Yahoo-bashing on this list a little while back, but I'd really like to see
some further discussion on this subject.

Tim Smith

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    Tim Smith                    Phone: (740) 593-2634
    Reference Dept.              E-Mail: tsmith1 at ohiou.edu
    Alden Library, Ohio Univ.    Fax: (740) 593-2959
    Athens, OH 45701

    "Technology has replaced reflection" -- Utah Phillips
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