[WEB4LIB] Re: Library web site organization

[Garwood, Steve]

You know I remember when I was in library school and looking up information
in periodical databases and having to remember that Wilson worked this way
and ABI worked that way, and absolutely despising the whole process. When
the Web came out and there started to be some universality in how things
were searched I thanked the gods that I was praying to at that time. 
I find it maddening today however that some of the tools out there that the
library provides access too (making them OUR tools in the patrons eyes)
don't fit the Search Engine orientation. We use EbscoHost for just about 95%
of all our magazine/journal work, it pisses me off that you have to type
and/or in search phrases...well maybe someday they'll learn too.

On a personal note, I TRIED to take away as much of the library talk as I
could on our website www.camden.lib.nj.us , but old habits die hard.
Additionally, I tried to follow most of Jakob Nielson's www.useit.com
usability "guidelines" in my design. As an Internet Instructor, I knew that
most of my beginners wouldn't/couldn't scroll and that most of our hits were
usually coming from beginners (the advanced ones see our page in the
library, then immediately type where they want to go in the address box), so
I tried to eliminate the need to scroll on the majority of pages on our
website, ergo, I had to make for categories.

My last diatribe - Anyone else believe that we need to perhaps stop having
10,000 odd library websites and perhaps really come together and build ONE
library on the Web? It's where the "patrons" of today are, but not really
where we are.

Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew K. Pace [mailto:andrew_pace at ncsu.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2000 1:43 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: Library web site organization


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

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