Sunday, May 6, 2007

Extreme Makeover: Library Website Edition, etc

I noticed Susan Caulfield has already done a fantastic job blogging about this event, so I will just mention a few thoughts. First, Elizabeth Thomsen is just so entertaining and spot on in her observations of the current state of many webpages. We're about to undergo a series of usability testing this fall in conjunction with some of our Computer Graphic Design classes (one of the many perks of being an academic library is collaborating with faculty and students = free help!). We did this same battery of usability tests about 3 years ago right before we revamped our library's webpage. It is really quite facinating to see your users try to navigate your website. Especially users like faculty, who you want to assume already have some familiarity with its resources. Yikes is all I'll say!!

But Elizabeth's advice was a great starting point for the beginnings of our discussions this summer. I will forward her slideshow to the rest of our librarystaff to get folks thinking about this topic.

In general though, in this post, which is probably my final blog before "signing off" from MLA blogging, I want to convey how I'm impressed I am with the wide variety of topics covered at MLA and have very much enjoyed meeting up with my colleages at institutions from across the state. It was my first MLA annual, and I enjoyed have the opportunity to participate and blog (great idea Beth!). I look forward to future events, and would encourage planners to advertise widely to academic librarian circles, so that we can continue to work together.

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