[WEB4LIB] Re: Library Web Page Use

[Linda Absher]

In my previous position with a small liberal-arts college, the marketing/PR
group wanted the library to use their standard template for our web pages,
which was designed to sell the school to alums/outside visitors.  The
problem was, the template included a prominent button that read "Catalog",
which linked to an online version of the catalog the college sent to
interested applicants.  You should have seen the look on their faces when I
pointed out the problems of having such a link on the library's web pages.
Needless to say, I wound up using my own design to avoid confusing users.


LInda

Linda Absher / Site Librarian
IBM Corporation, Beaverton, OR
(503) 578-3485 / labsher at us.ibm.com


                                                                                                                      
                    "Craighton                                                                                        
                    Hippenhammer"            To:     Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at webjunction.org>       
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                    12/10/01 10:18 AM                                                                                 
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Could also be "Re:  University home page as public relations magazine"

While I haven't been able to find the use statistics that I asked the list
members for, I have received plenty of commisseration concerning library
links on institution home pages.  It's also interesting to realize that
we're not the only university out there that has been outmaneuvered by
marketing/PR types.

In the Penn State study mentioned below, Astroff says this:  "Almost a
quarter of the colleges and universities that belong to ARL do not provide
an immediately visble active link to the library on the university home
page....  An unambiguous conclusion of this study is that the Web page
designers of 24 percent of ARL member institutions do not consider the
library a primary destination for their Web visitors."

She then gives several examples of home page as public relations magazine,
such as Kent State, Southern Illinois, and the University of Nebraska, and
then concludes by saying, "The interior pages of these sites include links
to the libraries along the same patterns identified above. But if
university home pages begin to cover only what look like press releases,
users will find themselves yet another step away from online resources.
Many of the home pages examined gave the weather report.  They would better
sever their users if they gave direct access to the library."

The question is, "Do we fight'em, or like some have mentioned here,
join'em?"

Craighton Hippenhammer
Information Technology Librarian
Olivet Nazarene University
chhammer at olivet.edu


>>> "Christofferson, Angela" <christoa at seattleu.edu> 12/07/01 11:46AM >>>

Hello,

The only study that came to my mind was the article in the June 2001 issue
of LITA titled "Searching for the library: university home page design and
missing links" by Roberta Astroff.  I don't remember it having the
statistics that you are looking for but it may have a lead to those
statistics....

Angela Christofferson
Lemieux Library - Seattle University
Coordinator of Information Technology Applications


Wednesday, December 05, 2001, 9:40:35 PM, you wrote:

CH> Is anyone aware of a study that compares the use of academic library
web pages to the use of the rest of the academic web site?  Most of the
studies I've read tend to evaluate the library site
CH> use only.  What I'm interested in is how many hits do library pages get
compared to academic non-library pages, perhaps broken down by department.



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