Organizing Databases

[Andrew I. Mutch]

We're in the home stretch of a reorganization project of our online
databases.  After reviewing a number of library web sites and discussion
here on the list, we've created a series of subject pages with the
appropriate databases listed with a description and the nature of the
content (citations only, full text, etc.). We are also adding a dropdown
menu with an alphabetical list of all of the individual databases to the
bottom of each page. We think this will help facilitate access to the full
range of products that we have.

One item that I've been thinking about is providing links in the dropdown
menu to the subject pages along with the individual databases.
Alternatively, I might have a separate menu or listing of the subject
headings at the bottom of each page. For those of you who have done this
or contemplated it, is this something that would be useful? Or is this a
distraction for most users? Are they just interested in access to specific
databases?

Thank you,

Andrew Mutch
Library Systems Technician
Waterford Township Public Library
Waterford, MI