Avoiding Déjà Vu All over again: Sustainable Approaches for Managing Academic Library Websites.

Avoiding Déjà Vu All over again: Sustainable Approaches for Managing Academic Library Websites.

Academic librarians

Speakers: Kelcy Shepherd, Digital Interfaces Librarian, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries; Gary Atwood, Reference Librarian, Springfield College

Most librarians who are charged with website management are accidental webmasters. They've learned as they've gone along, but get trapped into a redevelopment cycle as the library's web gets stale.

Presenters commended the audience for their vigorous participation.

At UMass many committees and task forces have been responsible. Now they have a content management person who manages Cascading Style Sheet and makes new designs. There's a programmer / systems manager who is responsible for all library technology. There is also a Web advisory committee which is a working group, assignments are given out, they do usability studies, construct Web best practices guidelines which are maintained on a committee wiki.

Questionnaire distributed as discussion starter.

1. Who is responsible for administering/updating your website? Webmaster? Web team? Other?

2. How much authority do you have to make changes to your website? None (someone else approves) Some (edit content but no adding new stuff), Masters of domain.

3. Does your web site have a specific purpose /mission statement Yes, No

4. Are there design/style guidelines that spell out how the web site should look? Yes, No

5. Is the library website a part of a larger institutional website (college, school, town)? Yes No

6. If yes, does the administrator of the institutional we site have control over your web site. Yes No

7. How would you rate the software you use to administer/update your site? Just right (easy to use, has all you need), OK (you figured out the basics, but the advanced stuff requires more training), Where's the manual (difficult to use, more sophisticated than what you need)

Think about your library website. Ask What is the purpose of the website -- Ask Who is the audience. Then

Think carefully about choosing a content management system. UMass Amherst uses

Silverstripe. http://www.silverstripe.com/ Many colleges use Drupal which was a little too tech heavy. There are some quirks that require workarounds.

It is a good idea to do usability testing. Others' eyes can be helpful.

Kathy Shepherd can be emailed kshepher@libary.umass.edu if you would like to receive UMass' Best Practices Guidelines and the Website Mission Statement which is kept on the committee wiki.

Brenda

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.

Extreme Makeover: Library Website Edition

Elizabeth Thomsen & Kevin Grocki
NOBLE (North of Boston Library Exchange)

The full slide presentation (with links and examples of some old/new/in progress NOBLE websites) is on the web.

I’ve heard Elizabeth Thomsen before and she’s great—enthusiastic and very funny. Her main point was that websites are like gardens or laws or houses or relationships—they need regular tending. Even a website with great content will become a “lava lamp land” of old looks and dead links if it is not evaluated and redesigned regularly.

Planning a website is like planning a new building—how will people enter, move around, and find what they need? But mistakes are less costly and can be changed more easily than in the physical world. So planning is good, but don’t get stuck there.

Writing for the web needs to be short and simple--“talk like a human being.” Use newspaper style, i.e., put the most important facts first or you’ll miss your audience (nobody reads to the end). Choose headings and links carefully, and avoid the “click here” syndrome (that highlights the *least* important information):

Think about your users—who are they and what do they want to know?--and make sure basics (hours, address, phone number) are easy to find. Put a catalog search box directly on the page if possible (save the time of the user). How did users get to your site (look at search logs)? When they get there, do they know where they are (not everyone comes in through the front door)?

Try to have just one link for databases, not “home” and “in library” (we need to change that one on *my* library’s website).

Add visual interest, but lose the old, bad clip art, and most animated graphics. The best images to use are photographs, book covers, book displays, and art by children & teens.
E.g., the website for Butler University Libraries has a right hand banner with an “Ask a Librarian” box, linking to a “how to contact us” page, and showing different librarian photos.

Keep the digital camera handy and take pictures of everything, and enlist patrons as volunteer photographers. Libraries should have a discussion about privacy rights and signed releases. Be careful about copyright.

Many photographs in Flickr have a creative commons license and can be used with attribution (e.g. flowers for a gardening booklist, etc.). Sort photo results by “interestingness.”

Try to have some dynamic content (content that changes, by JavaScript, an RSS feed, etc.), and get creative.

Then she got more technical, so for more complete notes, see the presentation slides.

Elizabeth and Kevin spent a LONG time after the presentation with me and another librarian answering some technical questions, which was much appreciated. We pretty much closed down the conference (all the cars were gone when I left). I came away with a lot of good ideas to implement for our website.