[WEB4LIB] Library web site organization

[Swanson, Troy]

Tim,

If I am reading your question correclty, this is a question I tackled this
summer as we (Moraine Valley Community College Library, Palos Hills,
Illinois) worked on our new website.  The issue is really information
architecture.  We can learn how to use html but this doesn't mean we know
how to lay out a site of multiple html pages.  The basic rule that I found
helpful is that a website is what it does, not what it is called.  In a
library we have developed our jargon but this jargon doesn't translate well
on the web.  When we laid out our site, we grouped pages together by
function.  This makes the most sense to library users via the web.  When we
delt with our listing (index) of subject specific sites (all listed under
the research section of the site) we took a more tradition library science
approach (defined subjects, cross referenced, etc, similar to LII).  As for
your question about your multi-format database, you could always link it up
in multiple places on the site, so that users wouldn't have to visit one
exact page to find it.

(I am sorry that our site is in testing now and is not available on the web.
But one site that comes to mind is the Georgia State University Libary site
at: http://wwwlib.gsu.edu/default.asp.  It is a fairly good example.)

I am not sure if you are familiar with the book "Information Architecture
for the World Wide Web" by Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville (one or both
of whom hold the MLS).  Anyway, I found it very helpful.

I hope that this helps

Troy


> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Tim Smith [SMTP:tsmith1 at ohiou.edu]
> Sent:	Wednesday, November 01, 2000 7:31 AM
> To:	Multiple recipients of list
> Subject:	[WEB4LIB] Library web site organization
> 
> 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
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> 
>     "Technology has replaced reflection" -- Utah Phillips
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> 
>