UCITA news

[George Porter]

ALAWON, the ALA Washington Office Newsline, has a few items on UCITA in the
2 February 2001 issue <http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon/alwn1005.html>.  

Mentioned in the first item is the ALA UCITA website
<http://www.ala.org/washoff/ucita/>.  While the content is first-rate, I
would not be at all surprised to see Vincent Flanders add it to his
instructive website on web design faux pas <http://webpagesthatsuck.com/>.  

The seemingly random movement of navigation tabs around the perimeter of the
browser window is probably not quite what Eric Robbins was planning when he
inquired about possible disadvantages to dropdowns, rollovers and other
navigational whiz bang effects.  However, changing the location of the
navigation buttons as one moves through a website is a decidedly poor way to
support users who are attempting to focus on content, rather than layout.

On the UCITA topic, if you haven't read:

   Gregory, Vicki L. [20]"UCITA: What Does it Mean for Libraries?"
   [21]Online (25)1 (Jan/Feb 2001) p. 30-34
   <http://www.onlineinc.com/onlinemag/OL2001/gregory1_01.html>

you should.  A nice review was included in the latest Current Cites
<http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/cc.current.html>

George S. Porter
Sherman Fairchild Library of Engineering & Applied Science
Caltech, 1-43
Pasadena, CA  91125-4300
Telephone (626) 395-3409 Fax (626) 431-2681