[WEB4LIB] Re: Library web site organization

[Andrew K. Pace]

Browse, browse, browse...users love to browse.  When we added local subject browsing for our electronic resources, usage went up over 120% compared to the previous year, with only a 18% increase in the number of available resources.  Just as AltaVista reported
increased traffic when they added a subject browse.  But what about the bulk of our data?

Charles Cutter's first goal in a library catalog: "To enable a person to find a book of which either is known: author, title, or subject."
This is no longer true!  The users of Yahoo don't need to know anything (there's a truism in there somewhere).
A lot of us have created browsable subjects for electronic resources, now we are talking about creating them for our web pages...have we forgotten the catalog?  Isn't there a chance here for a technical apologia for LCSH?  The online catalog made our holdings
infinitely more searchable, it made our authorized headings clickable, but did nothing to make our indexes *browsable*.  Why?  Do I have to buy a KidsPac to make my subject lists truly browsable?  Even more radical....why not do away with most of the HTML on our
websites altogether and just put the content in a database (gee isn't the catalog a database? hmmmm)...browsable and searchable: ultimate usability.
-Andrew

"Mary E. Faccioli" wrote:

> In my opinion, if you want to know why some think this profession is a sinking ship it's largely because of this idea that we must "force" users to behave in ways contrary to their nature, and also contrary to ways other "non-library" information sources provide.
>
> Mary Beth Faccioli
> Georgia State University Pullen Library
>
> >>> Julia Schult <jschult at elmira.edu> 11/01/00 11:42AM >>>
> Tim Smith wrote:
>
> > 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?thinking about and mulling over with some
> > of my colleagues for awhile now,
>
> One important point to keep in mind is that there is a real difference in what
> you get with different formats.  We intentionally force our users at the start
> of their information search to think about what they want to get out of it.  As
> a college, we want our users to learn information seeking skills, and part of a
> search is figuring out what kind of information you want, not just how to phrase
> the question.
>
> To make it concrete: the techniques for finding a book, an article, or a web
> page are different; the type of information on each is different even when the
> subject matter is the same.  Therefore it is an important part of
> information-seeking behavior to figure out which of those you want.  All of
> those formats provide "in-depth" information.  For quick reference, there is
> much less of a difference between a subscription database (Britannica) and a web
> site (Wordsmyth) in how they operate.
>
> So on our site, we first force the user to think about what they want to get at
> the end of their search: a Book, an Article, a Web Page, or a link to a quick
> answer (ready reference).  Trouble is, "ready reference" is a term librarians
> use, not the general public.  Better phrasing would be "Quick lookup" or "Quick
> Answer Sources" or something like that.
>
> Once the user has clear in their own mind which format they want, they can go
> ahead and think about subjects, keywords, etc.; but it is clear to me that
> defining the information goal in terms of format first will help their search.
> At the U. of Illinois, we taught the undergrads to think in terms of "Is your
> information need for A) In-Depth, B) Background, or C) quick factual; if it is
> in-depth do you need 1) Background, 2) Contemporary info, or 3) Retrospective
> information?"  Different sources (book vs. article) give different kinds of
> information.
>
> ---Julia E. Schult
> Access/Electronic Services Librarian
> Elmira College
> Jschult at elmira.edu

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Andrew K. Pace
Assistant Head, Systems ~ NCSU Libraries
North Carolina State University ~ Raleigh, NC
andrew_pace at ncsu.edu ~ 919-515-3087
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