The problem with meeting minutes in the wiki is that others that aren’t involved directly in the meeting get yet another location where they have to search for content. For example, I just scanned the LIS Website Team’s recent blog post LIS Web Team – Meeting Agenda 11/4 and 11/5 and got a bit of an update on how your team was progressing. This probably isn’t interesting to anyone outside of LIS, but I personally found this to be a mildly useful post.
In contrast, I didn’t even know that the LIS website team had its actual meeting minutes on a wiki page somewhere and wouldn’t have known to look for them if Jess hadn’t just mentioned it.
Alex – in many parts of your screencast, you feature the “Teaching with Technology” blog, at which you’re demonstrating some of the features of the shadowbox. In some of the screen shots, I see a post there referring to Kyoko Davis’s experiences that I would like to read (I audited her Japanese classes for two years a while back), but I’m unable to find that blog in any of the blogrolls, including the “Middlebury blogosphere,” at least under that name. Can you provide a link to that blog, please?
Thanks!
It would be great if you included the reference consultation statistics for which there were 120 last year – these often run from 1/2 hour to an hour, not including any prep time. This is a time-consuming role for librarians and should be reflected along side of the reference and instruction statistics. Also the instruction stats aren’t very accurate. It looks like summer school stats and staff workshops were left out and brief intro’s for FYSE were counted the same as full instruction sessions.
Arabella – Here’s the link to the “Teaching with Technology” blog, see: http://blogs.middlebury.edu/teachwithtech/. As well, here’s a link to the Genki site where much of her work is used by students. Happy to answer any questions you have about Kyoko’s work.
I’m wondering why “Other Collections on Campus” will be included in the LIS site. I can understand that since they’re all sort of ‘libraries’ it would be ‘intuitive’ to include them under “Library Collections.” Yet, on the other hand, the materials that comprise those collections are not cataloged (with the exceptions of Career Services and the Scott Center), they are not acquired with LIS funds, and they are not housed in “LIS buildings.” Given all this, I kinda don’t understand why they should be included under “Library collections.”
Also, just so you know – I believe that the contents of what used to be the Curriculum Materials Center at Twilight, the lending library at Human Resources, and a small ‘library’ at Palana have been or are being added to the Library collections (as ‘gifts,’ some of which have been weeded).
Thanks for your comments here and on the previous post about the library IA!
“Other Collections on Campus” – Yes, from an organizational standpoint, these collections aren’t LIS. And they’re quite different from our collections since we don’t manage them. But they are collections with resources that students can consult, just like our libraries are. Our goal was to link our collections up with theirs, at least tangentially. Calling them “Other collections on campus” does this, I think. It gives them some visibility but makes it clear that they won’t be found in Main Lib, Armstrong or Music. I expect that some of our subject guides refer to some of these collections, too.
Twilight – We put a question mark there as a placeholder–we wanted to confirm with someone that this collection is indeed being added to the Main Lib. It sounds like it is, so I’ll delete it! Thanks.
Scott Center – I didn’t even know about this collection. Sounds like it should be added! That probably wasn’t your intention when you mentioned it though.
Regarding your earlier post, in which you asked if we could develop a library toolbar like the one at ASU: We have one. It’s called LibX. It’s pretty neat but I haven’t used it since I reimaged my computer, so I’m not sure if it’s still completely functional. Probably is. There are links to the toolbar for Firefox and IE on a Research Shortcuts guide I created for a workshop. In the new site, we hope to make this tool more visible! Maybe in a MIDCAT guides section…? I need to talk with a few others about this.
Thanks again! Please keep sending in your questions.
I am all for removing the laptops. However, having students check out computers from circ or use the laptop cart will not be any better for teaching purposes. The problem with the laptops is the amount of time it takes away from teaching because of all the trouble-shooting (cables unplugged, can’t connect to the network, etc.) which requires instructors to arrive extra early (which isn’t always possible if another class has the room immediately beforehand). Students arrive at the last minute or even late and they hold up class trying to get their computers going. If we want to cont. to have this room be a teaching space with computers (which would relieve pressure from Lib 105 and could allow LIS to let faculty reserve the room for 1 time classes), then we need a setup like Lib 105 (in terms of stationery computers along the wall and tables in the middle for discussions not needing computers). Personally I think the library is a better place to have an extra lab than Sunderland. Students are here more often than there (though you’d still need a 24 hour lab there). I’d be happy to be in on discussions for Lib 140. Thanks, Brenda
Carrie’s response regarding links to non-LIS maintained resources is also in keeping with our goal of (and White Whale’s recommendations for) creating a web presence that is structured not in terms of functional work roles (or in this case, paths to or descriptions of things that fall strictly under our own organizational purview), but rather in terms of what users need and expect. We should give users additional paths to resources wherever it makes sense, even if that means guiding them to other departments and resources outside of LIS.
This is just what we need – I even can see that one of the library printers is in an error state! I didn’t think there was any chance of this happening so quickly, with everything else that’s going on. Thank you!
I pretty much thought the intention was to ‘cross silos’ and ‘consolidate’ resources, and that’s great. (And, actually, I kinda intended that the Scott Center collection should be added, if you’re sure you’re going to do this.)
OK, then, depending on how you want to define ‘other collections on campus’, I happen to know because I/we send outdated periodicals to them (6-months- or 1-year-old stuff that we don’t bind) that at least the Mathematics, Economics, and German departments also have ‘collections’ or at least reading areas.
These departmental reading areas also contain resources that students can consult – will you include them, too? I’m guessing that at least some of them probably have as much reading/browsing material as the Scott Center does. Where/how do you draw a line? How will you be sure that you’ve included everything on campus, or do you want to? And if you don’t want to, why not?
I kinda hate to bring all this up because I totally agree with the _concept_ that it’s great to bring together in one spot as much as possible. I just know there’s a lot out there and…. well, I’ll shut up now since I’ve made all the points I want to make, inconclusive and contradictory though they may be.
Good luck! (and the Web team is doing excellent work – thank you!)
PS to Carrie – thanks for the LibX info. I even had it on a previous version of Firefox on a previous computer, but I’d forgotten all about it. Thanks!
Both Ian and I and others met with WW last Friday to discuss blog themes in general. I think what is important is not so much which particular theme(s) we use, but what features/options are most useful for any given theme to have. ShadowBox itself is less of a particular theme than it is a framework for creating themes in general. Thus it could be possible to use the ShadowBox framework to implement one or more White Whale designed themes. That way we could develop a consistent set of options that many/all themes might share…
Arabella – If it works, we’ve decided to include LibX in the “carousel” at the bottom of the library site. And in other places on the site too of course.
Hi Elin, I’m curious as to whether you also have a non-student staff member in the building from midnight to 8:00 am? If so, is this person(s) a “substitute” and do you continually have to hire and train them? Thanks. Joanne
Hi Joanne!
We staff with an outside security service at the Info desk. Circ provides an orientation and they overlap with regular Circ staff at beginning and end of their night shift.
As always, Public Safety is available for back-up support.
The Circ Desk is closed/opened by Circ staff at the regularly scheduled times.
The Circ Desk is staffed overnight with a combination of student and regular Circ and LIS staff – mostly student staff. Circ provides a group orientation/training for the night-owl overnight crew.
We take hourly gate and head counts.
We provide coffee/tea/hot chocolate and snacks for staff/student staff working the overnight shift.
We require ID card access after 11 pm during 24/7.
Our custodial staff work extra hard during 24/7 – it is a challenge to keep clean a building that never closes.
It is a much appreciated service by the many students who utilize it.
Hope that helps.
Let me see if I understand the UVM model correctly. They have bib records in their catalog for stuff they don’t currently own, but can presumably receive quickly if it’s selected. So presumably the item record (or whatever) instead of, like in Midcat, saying ‘Available’ would say something like ‘can be obtained.’ So the user who has searched and found such a record clicks on ‘can be obtained’ (or some similar process) and the order is placed.
This is significantly easier than our current ‘user request’ process which is to fill out a webform with the author, title, publisher, etc. Yet, a place the size of UVM has only done 600 such orders in two years? I really have nothing on which to base this, but it seems like we’ve probably matched or exceeded that (particularly if you correct for differences in user populations) with our comparatively ‘clunky’ request process, haven’t we? Just sayin’ ….
I’m still fairly confused by all the dif places to review (the wiki, the word doc, the midd2 mockup) and I have a little trouble deciphering some things on my own and would prefer a demo by some of the team. But one thing that definitely doesn’t make sense to me is the Library Collections page – Main Library as show here: http://midd2.middlebury.edu/academics/lib/collections/mainlib
I was expecting to see brief descriptions of the various types of collections (gov docs, vt coll, periodicals, foreign language, browsing, microfilms, etc. Instead I get a department listing. We already have a spot for that. Departments aren’t collections.
Also, I’m pleased to see Subject Guides prominently featured but I don’t know that it makes sense to have a link that says research databases that appears to just be another way of getting to the subject guides. There’s tons on the subject guides that aren’t databases. Maybe instead it should be a Research Databases A-Z that links to the new title list. More comments later.
Thanks for putting out the computer in the lobby so we can explore the new website. I am dissappointed that LIS is not on the main page nor the quick links, but maybe I just have too much of a vested interest. However, when we first put up Big Bad’s design of the now current website, it did not include LIS on the main page and users all over campus screamed to get LIS put back on the main page (as it was in the prev. website) and thus it was added in shortly thereafter. When I didn’t find LIS under quicklinks, I went to academics, but I can only find Library not all of LIS. (I’ve now discovered its under offices and services with everything else and also under the pages for student and faculty/staff). Personally I don’t think LIS is prominent enough on the student page – you have to scroll down and if they want to do research, they have to look under Tools and Technology to find the Library, and resetting their password is higher up than the main LIS page). I thought LIS was going to be listed under Quick Links at least, which to my mind should be the most frequently accessed webpages that aren’t listed on the main page. There is a link to the bookstore but not LIS?? Does the bookstore really get more traffic than LIS, technology, and the library? It just reinforces the notion that the main college website is all about admissions and making money (i.e seeking donations or selling something). It will be interesting to see what comments our users make. But I will say there are many, many improvements so I thank you for all your hard work!
Thanks for these comments Brenda. It’s important to point out that the site on display in the Library atrium is a mockup from White Whale that is very close to the final look-and-feel, but doesn’t have all of the details ironed out. Particularly, the Quick Links are some suggestions from White Whale which we will tweak. The LIS Website Team requested, and received approval from the AD Team, to define the paths to the LIS site on our home page and other areas of the site. Our proposal is to have two links to LIS sites, in addition to links to services like Webmail and BannerWeb that we know must be in the list. The two links will be Library and Technology Help.
We looked at usage statistics for the current LIS site and found that these two areas of the site receive the vast majority of the site traffic. The Library site gets 50% of the clicks from the LIS home page. Since so many of our visitors end up on the Library and Helpdesk sites, we want to help them get there as quickly as possible, which we can do with direct links in the Quick Links area. You’re right to point out that LIS gets more traffic than the bookstore, but the *only* way to get to the bookstore on our current site is through that footer, while there are many paths to LIS. Since the bookstore is a sort of stand-alone site, this makes sense to continue.
That doesn’t mean that we think nobody should visit the LIS home page! On the contrary, we’re discussing next week how we’ll implement the recommendation that all of the LIS related sites (Libraries, Helpdesk, Curricular Technology, Telephone Services, etc.) have an “LIS logo” that people can click on and get right back to the LIS home page. One way this might work is to have an LIS banner image on all of these sites (imagine this said LIS instead of CTLR in the banner: http://middlebury.babywhale.net/academics/ctlr/nojuice.php), but we haven’t come to any firm decisions on this yet.
We also looked at search statistics which showed the LIS is one of the most popular search terms year-round and was the #1 search term for both September and October in 2008. For this reason, when you type “lis” into the search box on our new site, we’re going to bring you right to the new LIS home page which will have aggregated content from this blog as well as the hours of all our locations (Library hours are the most popular page on our site) and many other content regions. Check out the wireframe that Doreen and Jeff have worked on to illustrate this: https://mediawiki.middlebury.edu/wiki/LIS/Image:Lis_landing_page.jpg
What’s more interesting about this article is the idea of a coordinated effort between ILL and Acquisitions to purchase frequently requested items instead of borrowing them multiple times.
Mike has some Q’s about the IA – I invited him to join us this coming Wed.
Tight schedules and upcoming deadlines did not allow me time to consult the team – my apologies.
Phrased another way: Is Mike bringing his own questions and concerns, or is he coming as a representative of the AD team and bringing us the AD team’s questions and concerns? If the former, how will the record of our meeting with Mike be communicated to the rest of the ADs, and will we need to have a separate meeting with the whole AD team or not?
I’m coming as me and me alone. I would like to get you onto the agenda for an AD meeting as well, but I also realize that you are under pressure to get building, and so wanted to provide input/feedback.
Thanks for your comments, Brenda. As you may have seen, we’ll be giving a quick update on the LIS site in this afternoon’s all-staff meeting. In addition, I’ve put it on our list of requested agenda items for an ACS meeting.
The Main Library collections page isn’t finished yet. There will be a description as you described. The reason for putting contact info at the top of the page is that we expected some people will look for it on the Collections page rather than the Departments page. You’re right, perhaps we don’t need redundancy, especially since users might just use “Search” when they’re looking for contact info. We’re trying to anticipate how different users might look for information; perhaps we’re not guessing right. We’ll think more about this.
The contents of the “Research Databases” section depend in part on how much we can integrate SubjectsPlus into the site. We definitely need the A-Z list of databases. We’d also like this to be the home for New and Trial Databases, and maybe even Most Popular Databases at some point. We included “By subject” because there was so much distress when we removed it from the current CMS. Perhaps with “Subject Guides” in the sidebar, if we don’t include “By subject” this time around, no one will miss it. We’ll think more about this too!
Just to repeat publicly a message I sent to ILL in October:
“Your prompt service permitted me to get the sources (electronically, through NeXpress, and through ordinary ILL) that I needed to review an article for publication on an obscure topic. Through you, we have the resources of a research library. It’s much appreciated!”
I like that you break out the types of technolgies, but I expected to see this under Tools (not Uses), which is where I first went, then was frustrated to just see them named with no clue about what some do. I’m guessing you’ll add content to describe them when you click on them – but I hate clicking thru levels and lots of hirarchies. I’d rather have things listed out on one page and scroll if necessary (of course if more of the page weren’t taken up by the menus, you’d have more content room). I guess I’d prefer to combine what you have under Uses with what you have under Tools, since the distinction is unclear to me. That is, present your tools arranged by type with brief description on one page and maybe have a drop-down menu or side box of the technologies by name A-Z for quick access. I like that you have buzzwords and I like that you have stories (though I really don’t like that term used to describe projects but I’ll have to get used to it given the main homepage). Also, I think you should seriously consider not having the right hand sidebar on subpages, esp. the stories page, because it limits the main content severely. Thanks for seeking input.
I like the “dark” color scheme of the new website but am confused as to why I do not see our Middlebury School colors there more, why there are no images of our beutiful campus on the homepage (the bardcode on the front makes us look like an engineering school not a liberal arts school), and why there is an overabundance of text and lack of images?
I agree with Brenda about being confused between Uses and Tools, what I was expecting to see where, and in particular the list of ‘tools’ with no annotation about what tools can do what. (Maybe that’s coming?) When I see the word ‘Uses’ in the left menu, I think “Uses for what?” Then I remember that I’m looking at the Curricular Technologies page, so it must be “Uses for curricular technologies” and then I get stumped. (Admittedly, I’m probably not in your primary target demographic.) I really like that in the opening paragraph of the ‘homepage’ you say “… how it can be _used_, what _tools_, …” but “Uses” as a category for what you’ve got listed under it just doesn’t work for me. They seem to be more like Purposes or Objectives or … I dunno. The more I think about it, the more I see that ‘Uses’ is about as good as it’s going to get.
Under uses (and the note says there’s duplication, so maybe this is part of that) – “Research” and “Data Collection and Analysis” are listed separately. I’m trying to think of ‘research’ that doesn’t involve some kind of ‘data collection/analysis’ and I’m not coming up with anything. I see that you’re categorizing what I used to call ‘literature research’ (now perhaps better termed informational research?) as “Research.” Information is just data in a language. I’d lump it all under ‘research’ – that could cut down the length of your left-hand menu list a bit, if that’s an objective.
Also, I’m certainly not a musician, but I would never think to look under ‘audio’ to find how to create sheet music. Since Dan’s on your team, I assume you’ve thought through that and if that’s ‘intuitive’ for a musician, then so be it.
Despite these persnickety comments, I do think overall you’ve done a good job of organizing a lot of content very well. Thank you!
Take it or leave it!:
1) I appreciate the value of brevity on a website but sometimes taking out words obscures meaning. Uses and Stories don’t mean anything in particular to me (also, when I first read “uses” in my head I pronounced it the other way). I would consider renaming Uses to “Technology uses” tools to “Technology tools” and stories to “Tools in action”.
Also, in retrospect, I didn’t even read the first paragraph you have on your page—I just went straight to the left-hand menu and started clicking. That said, maybe someone who does read that text would understand what Uses, Tools, and Stories mean in the context you’ve set up and would remember “I am on the CT site, these are Uses as they relate to CT…” but apparently not me
2) Categories under Uses are good. I didn’t know what “visualization” meant but I clicked on it and found out.
3) Also, Re: left-hand menu under Uses. To figure out what “visualization” meant, I clicked on the left hand menu, not the list on the center of the page.
4) After visiting the Uses page, I expected the Tools page to behave in the same way with regard to the left hand menu. I personally liked seeing the subpages listed, but I don’t think the nav. method you choose matters, so long as it’s consistent throughout your site.
His main points (some of which we already do, yay!):
1. Watch your patrons do stuff
2. Look at what’s on the screens of the computers in your library
3. Send feedback to your vendors
4. Use Google Analytics
5. Decide what metrics are appropriate to measure your success
6. Set up a Twitter search feed to see what people are saying about your facility
7. Look for stories in your search terms
8. Write down 10 things your patrons are passionate about
9. Start blogging about those things
10. Share content
11. Play (esp. with the line between online and physical)
12. Try Infomaki
Hi Carrie
1) I like the change in name to Contact Us. Makes sense to me, and sounds less bureaucratic than “Library Departments”
2) I like the changes to Lib Collections in theory better than in the actual mock up. My suggestion would be more like this
-LIBRARY COLLECTIONS
—MAIN LIBRARY
——COLLEGE ARCHIVES
——GOV DOCS
——SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
——VT
——DIG
—ARMSTRONG
—MUSIC
—DAVISON
—WILLIAM TELL
—OTHER COLLECTIONS ON CAMPUS
In other words (in case the formatting gets screwed up in this post), to nest the specific collections (archives, etc.) under Main Library, which is where they actually live. (I know: “Dig” doesn’t really live anywhere, but the work is done mostly in Main).
It just seems a little weird to me to list a bunch of branches and then list “Collections” separately on the same level.
Actually I prefer leaving it as Library Departments. Users aren’t always looking for contact info. and they may have something specific in mind like reserves, ILL, so they are looking for those terms or a close approximation (departments). They may be looking for documentation, policies, structure, etc. I’d rather see a Contact Us as a separate page that gives a general phone and email and then a most frequently requested (Reserves, ILL, Circulation, Research Assistance/Ask a Librarian and a link to Departments or the Directory for more additional contact info. If you’d really like to combine the two, then label it Departments and Contacts.
On a related note, I don’t know what you intend for the center of the page, but I think we absolutely need a link for Reserves and ILL front and center on the main page. You have Borrowing on the side menu but not Reserves or ILL. I think the latter two are even more heavily sought – all 3 need to be on the front page.
As for Collections, I’m not satisfied with the arrangement. I completely agree that we should reduce the nesting. In fact I think we should reduce it even more. If I’m looking for special collections, I should be able to click on Collections and not have to click on a 2nd “Collections” – it should be right there on the page and I prefer to see all this info in the center of the page, not just in the sidebar menu. Why not simply expand out the hierarchy on the page itself so that users would see Main Library as a heading, and underneath that each collection listed, then below that Armstrong Science Library and highlight anything special like Map collection and so forth. I don’t think we need the middle of the main collections page devoted to a long general description in large print. I’d rather see the first part of the description you have in regular sized font with ..more (like users are accustomed to with blog posts) and then each library or collection listed and described similarly. Also get rid of the right side bar stuff at this level – its taking up real estate and forcing everything to have to be on subplages. You could put library hours and Ask a librarian in the left menu (but keep them in the right menu for the main Library page). That or make it part of a header that goes across the top page of all pages. I just hate having subpages crammed into tiny space.
Also, new users have no idea what Davison library is or William Tell. Spell it out like you did for Armstrong. Thus Davison (Breadloaf) library, and William Tell (Monterey) library. Brand New users still might not know what Breadloaf is but within a few weeks our new students, faculty and staff will have heard of Breadloaf, while you’d easily find seniors who have no clue what Davison is or William Tell.
I agree with Brenda Re: Collections page arrangement. I think on this page it would make sense to have the subpages listed in a “subpage list” right in the middle of the page (see CT page for an example: http://midd2.middlebury.edu/offices/technology/ct/uses) This way you’d take care of the nesting issues and subpage nav. depth issues all at once.
I agree with Brenda about ILL and Reserves being prominent, and I like Terry’s idea of nesting the collections that are held in Main.
I have a comment about the opening paragraph on the “Library Collections” page (I know – you’re not asking about that; too bad).
Currently it says:
“Our collection is particularly strong in languages to support our summer Language School programs. ”
The summer LS programs evolved out of an institutional focus on international studies/languages that predates the establishment of the LSs (well-established though they are). Yes, we get materials for the LSs that we might not get if they weren’t here, but… it’s kind of a chicken-and-egg thing. Regardless, I think it would be better to state something more inclusive of language teaching than just the summer LSs. One possibility:
“Our collection is particularly strong in languages to support Middlebury College’s focus on international and cross-cultural studies.”
1. Library Departments: “Contact” is fine with me if quick access is what you want. If you use contact, however, you must have an exhaustive list of all possible points of contact, as “contacting is what you’re facilitating. When you list departments, you limit the list to what you’re defining as departments.
2. Library Collections: You bring the problem of having 11 entries on yourselves by confusing libraries and collections. To students, campus libraries are places to go to for specific materials or to study in specific locations. Collections are subsets of the information resources we have on hand, usually noted by subject and/or format (i.e. Vermont, Postcards, Flanders Ballads, etc). Rid yourselves of one or the other in this category, and don’t feel you have to be exhaustive with collections. Why, for instance, must we single out gov docs? The government is merely one publisher–albeit a large one–among many that offer materials on subjects in the general collection.
3. I’d like to see an “About Us” link on the left side that offers org info on LIS and the library. It’d be like the link we all use when we go to other library pages, as some of us do often.
The problem with meeting minutes in the wiki is that others that aren’t involved directly in the meeting get yet another location where they have to search for content. For example, I just scanned the LIS Website Team’s recent blog post LIS Web Team – Meeting Agenda 11/4 and 11/5 and got a bit of an update on how your team was progressing. This probably isn’t interesting to anyone outside of LIS, but I personally found this to be a mildly useful post.
In contrast, I didn’t even know that the LIS website team had its actual meeting minutes on a wiki page somewhere and wouldn’t have known to look for them if Jess hadn’t just mentioned it.
Alex – in many parts of your screencast, you feature the “Teaching with Technology” blog, at which you’re demonstrating some of the features of the shadowbox. In some of the screen shots, I see a post there referring to Kyoko Davis’s experiences that I would like to read (I audited her Japanese classes for two years a while back), but I’m unable to find that blog in any of the blogrolls, including the “Middlebury blogosphere,” at least under that name. Can you provide a link to that blog, please?
Thanks!
Very helpful, btw!
It would be great if you included the reference consultation statistics for which there were 120 last year – these often run from 1/2 hour to an hour, not including any prep time. This is a time-consuming role for librarians and should be reflected along side of the reference and instruction statistics. Also the instruction stats aren’t very accurate. It looks like summer school stats and staff workshops were left out and brief intro’s for FYSE were counted the same as full instruction sessions.
Arabella – Here’s the link to the “Teaching with Technology” blog, see: http://blogs.middlebury.edu/teachwithtech/. As well, here’s a link to the Genki site where much of her work is used by students. Happy to answer any questions you have about Kyoko’s work.
This is fabulous! I love it and will absolutely promote it. Thanks Petar!
Very cool!
You read our minds!
I can never remember to add ? in shortcuts so I made an alternative one go/lisblog – love the create your own go shortcut feature
Hi Web team,
I’m wondering why “Other Collections on Campus” will be included in the LIS site. I can understand that since they’re all sort of ‘libraries’ it would be ‘intuitive’ to include them under “Library Collections.” Yet, on the other hand, the materials that comprise those collections are not cataloged (with the exceptions of Career Services and the Scott Center), they are not acquired with LIS funds, and they are not housed in “LIS buildings.” Given all this, I kinda don’t understand why they should be included under “Library collections.”
Also, just so you know – I believe that the contents of what used to be the Curriculum Materials Center at Twilight, the lending library at Human Resources, and a small ‘library’ at Palana have been or are being added to the Library collections (as ‘gifts,’ some of which have been weeded).
Hi Arabella,
Thanks for your comments here and on the previous post about the library IA!
“Other Collections on Campus” – Yes, from an organizational standpoint, these collections aren’t LIS. And they’re quite different from our collections since we don’t manage them. But they are collections with resources that students can consult, just like our libraries are. Our goal was to link our collections up with theirs, at least tangentially. Calling them “Other collections on campus” does this, I think. It gives them some visibility but makes it clear that they won’t be found in Main Lib, Armstrong or Music. I expect that some of our subject guides refer to some of these collections, too.
Twilight – We put a question mark there as a placeholder–we wanted to confirm with someone that this collection is indeed being added to the Main Lib. It sounds like it is, so I’ll delete it! Thanks.
Scott Center – I didn’t even know about this collection. Sounds like it should be added! That probably wasn’t your intention when you mentioned it though.
Regarding your earlier post, in which you asked if we could develop a library toolbar like the one at ASU: We have one. It’s called LibX. It’s pretty neat but I haven’t used it since I reimaged my computer, so I’m not sure if it’s still completely functional. Probably is. There are links to the toolbar for Firefox and IE on a Research Shortcuts guide I created for a workshop. In the new site, we hope to make this tool more visible! Maybe in a MIDCAT guides section…? I need to talk with a few others about this.
Thanks again! Please keep sending in your questions.
I am all for removing the laptops. However, having students check out computers from circ or use the laptop cart will not be any better for teaching purposes. The problem with the laptops is the amount of time it takes away from teaching because of all the trouble-shooting (cables unplugged, can’t connect to the network, etc.) which requires instructors to arrive extra early (which isn’t always possible if another class has the room immediately beforehand). Students arrive at the last minute or even late and they hold up class trying to get their computers going. If we want to cont. to have this room be a teaching space with computers (which would relieve pressure from Lib 105 and could allow LIS to let faculty reserve the room for 1 time classes), then we need a setup like Lib 105 (in terms of stationery computers along the wall and tables in the middle for discussions not needing computers). Personally I think the library is a better place to have an extra lab than Sunderland. Students are here more often than there (though you’d still need a 24 hour lab there). I’d be happy to be in on discussions for Lib 140. Thanks, Brenda
Carrie’s response regarding links to non-LIS maintained resources is also in keeping with our goal of (and White Whale’s recommendations for) creating a web presence that is structured not in terms of functional work roles (or in this case, paths to or descriptions of things that fall strictly under our own organizational purview), but rather in terms of what users need and expect. We should give users additional paths to resources wherever it makes sense, even if that means guiding them to other departments and resources outside of LIS.
This is just what we need – I even can see that one of the library printers is in an error state! I didn’t think there was any chance of this happening so quickly, with everything else that’s going on. Thank you!
Thanks, Jess and Carrie!
I pretty much thought the intention was to ‘cross silos’ and ‘consolidate’ resources, and that’s great. (And, actually, I kinda intended that the Scott Center collection should be added, if you’re sure you’re going to do this.)
OK, then, depending on how you want to define ‘other collections on campus’, I happen to know because I/we send outdated periodicals to them (6-months- or 1-year-old stuff that we don’t bind) that at least the Mathematics, Economics, and German departments also have ‘collections’ or at least reading areas.
These departmental reading areas also contain resources that students can consult – will you include them, too? I’m guessing that at least some of them probably have as much reading/browsing material as the Scott Center does. Where/how do you draw a line? How will you be sure that you’ve included everything on campus, or do you want to? And if you don’t want to, why not?
I kinda hate to bring all this up because I totally agree with the _concept_ that it’s great to bring together in one spot as much as possible. I just know there’s a lot out there and…. well, I’ll shut up now since I’ve made all the points I want to make, inconclusive and contradictory though they may be.
Good luck! (and the Web team is doing excellent work – thank you!)
PS to Carrie – thanks for the LibX info. I even had it on a previous version of Firefox on a previous computer, but I’d forgotten all about it. Thanks!
Both Ian and I and others met with WW last Friday to discuss blog themes in general. I think what is important is not so much which particular theme(s) we use, but what features/options are most useful for any given theme to have. ShadowBox itself is less of a particular theme than it is a framework for creating themes in general. Thus it could be possible to use the ShadowBox framework to implement one or more White Whale designed themes. That way we could develop a consistent set of options that many/all themes might share…
Arabella – If it works, we’ve decided to include LibX in the “carousel” at the bottom of the library site. And in other places on the site too of course.
Hi Elin, I’m curious as to whether you also have a non-student staff member in the building from midnight to 8:00 am? If so, is this person(s) a “substitute” and do you continually have to hire and train them? Thanks. Joanne
Nice summary Jess. These sound like really interesting sessions. Thanks for sharing them.
Hi Joanne!
We staff with an outside security service at the Info desk. Circ provides an orientation and they overlap with regular Circ staff at beginning and end of their night shift.
As always, Public Safety is available for back-up support.
The Circ Desk is closed/opened by Circ staff at the regularly scheduled times.
The Circ Desk is staffed overnight with a combination of student and regular Circ and LIS staff – mostly student staff. Circ provides a group orientation/training for the night-owl overnight crew.
We take hourly gate and head counts.
We provide coffee/tea/hot chocolate and snacks for staff/student staff working the overnight shift.
We require ID card access after 11 pm during 24/7.
Our custodial staff work extra hard during 24/7 – it is a challenge to keep clean a building that never closes.
It is a much appreciated service by the many students who utilize it.
Hope that helps.
Interlibrary Loan — how it works and what’s on the horizon — sounds like a good topic for LISterine!
Let me see if I understand the UVM model correctly. They have bib records in their catalog for stuff they don’t currently own, but can presumably receive quickly if it’s selected. So presumably the item record (or whatever) instead of, like in Midcat, saying ‘Available’ would say something like ‘can be obtained.’ So the user who has searched and found such a record clicks on ‘can be obtained’ (or some similar process) and the order is placed.
This is significantly easier than our current ‘user request’ process which is to fill out a webform with the author, title, publisher, etc. Yet, a place the size of UVM has only done 600 such orders in two years? I really have nothing on which to base this, but it seems like we’ve probably matched or exceeded that (particularly if you correct for differences in user populations) with our comparatively ‘clunky’ request process, haven’t we? Just sayin’ ….
I’m still fairly confused by all the dif places to review (the wiki, the word doc, the midd2 mockup) and I have a little trouble deciphering some things on my own and would prefer a demo by some of the team. But one thing that definitely doesn’t make sense to me is the Library Collections page – Main Library as show here: http://midd2.middlebury.edu/academics/lib/collections/mainlib
I was expecting to see brief descriptions of the various types of collections (gov docs, vt coll, periodicals, foreign language, browsing, microfilms, etc. Instead I get a department listing. We already have a spot for that. Departments aren’t collections.
Also, I’m pleased to see Subject Guides prominently featured but I don’t know that it makes sense to have a link that says research databases that appears to just be another way of getting to the subject guides. There’s tons on the subject guides that aren’t databases. Maybe instead it should be a Research Databases A-Z that links to the new title list. More comments later.
Thanks for putting out the computer in the lobby so we can explore the new website. I am dissappointed that LIS is not on the main page nor the quick links, but maybe I just have too much of a vested interest. However, when we first put up Big Bad’s design of the now current website, it did not include LIS on the main page and users all over campus screamed to get LIS put back on the main page (as it was in the prev. website) and thus it was added in shortly thereafter. When I didn’t find LIS under quicklinks, I went to academics, but I can only find Library not all of LIS. (I’ve now discovered its under offices and services with everything else and also under the pages for student and faculty/staff). Personally I don’t think LIS is prominent enough on the student page – you have to scroll down and if they want to do research, they have to look under Tools and Technology to find the Library, and resetting their password is higher up than the main LIS page). I thought LIS was going to be listed under Quick Links at least, which to my mind should be the most frequently accessed webpages that aren’t listed on the main page. There is a link to the bookstore but not LIS?? Does the bookstore really get more traffic than LIS, technology, and the library? It just reinforces the notion that the main college website is all about admissions and making money (i.e seeking donations or selling something). It will be interesting to see what comments our users make. But I will say there are many, many improvements so I thank you for all your hard work!
Thanks for these comments Brenda. It’s important to point out that the site on display in the Library atrium is a mockup from White Whale that is very close to the final look-and-feel, but doesn’t have all of the details ironed out. Particularly, the Quick Links are some suggestions from White Whale which we will tweak. The LIS Website Team requested, and received approval from the AD Team, to define the paths to the LIS site on our home page and other areas of the site. Our proposal is to have two links to LIS sites, in addition to links to services like Webmail and BannerWeb that we know must be in the list. The two links will be Library and Technology Help.
We looked at usage statistics for the current LIS site and found that these two areas of the site receive the vast majority of the site traffic. The Library site gets 50% of the clicks from the LIS home page. Since so many of our visitors end up on the Library and Helpdesk sites, we want to help them get there as quickly as possible, which we can do with direct links in the Quick Links area. You’re right to point out that LIS gets more traffic than the bookstore, but the *only* way to get to the bookstore on our current site is through that footer, while there are many paths to LIS. Since the bookstore is a sort of stand-alone site, this makes sense to continue.
That doesn’t mean that we think nobody should visit the LIS home page! On the contrary, we’re discussing next week how we’ll implement the recommendation that all of the LIS related sites (Libraries, Helpdesk, Curricular Technology, Telephone Services, etc.) have an “LIS logo” that people can click on and get right back to the LIS home page. One way this might work is to have an LIS banner image on all of these sites (imagine this said LIS instead of CTLR in the banner: http://middlebury.babywhale.net/academics/ctlr/nojuice.php), but we haven’t come to any firm decisions on this yet.
We also looked at search statistics which showed the LIS is one of the most popular search terms year-round and was the #1 search term for both September and October in 2008. For this reason, when you type “lis” into the search box on our new site, we’re going to bring you right to the new LIS home page which will have aggregated content from this blog as well as the hours of all our locations (Library hours are the most popular page on our site) and many other content regions. Check out the wireframe that Doreen and Jeff have worked on to illustrate this: https://mediawiki.middlebury.edu/wiki/LIS/Image:Lis_landing_page.jpg
What’s more interesting about this article is the idea of a coordinated effort between ILL and Acquisitions to purchase frequently requested items instead of borrowing them multiple times.
Is this meeting with Mike in lieu of or in addition to meeting with the whole AD team?
Mike has some Q’s about the IA – I invited him to join us this coming Wed.
Tight schedules and upcoming deadlines did not allow me time to consult the team – my apologies.
Phrased another way: Is Mike bringing his own questions and concerns, or is he coming as a representative of the AD team and bringing us the AD team’s questions and concerns? If the former, how will the record of our meeting with Mike be communicated to the rest of the ADs, and will we need to have a separate meeting with the whole AD team or not?
I’m coming as me and me alone. I would like to get you onto the agenda for an AD meeting as well, but I also realize that you are under pressure to get building, and so wanted to provide input/feedback.
– mike
Got it. Thanks, Mike!
Hi, LIS:
There are two things that I’ve noticed that I want to thank you for.
1. Library computers now ask the user before going into daily shut-down mode. (I’ve lost parts of papers in the past because of this previous problem)
2. The E-res code is much easier to calculate on the fly this year. Adding **** to any number is pretty easy.
I hope both of these trends continue in the future.
Mike
Thanks for your comments, Brenda. As you may have seen, we’ll be giving a quick update on the LIS site in this afternoon’s all-staff meeting. In addition, I’ve put it on our list of requested agenda items for an ACS meeting.
The Main Library collections page isn’t finished yet. There will be a description as you described. The reason for putting contact info at the top of the page is that we expected some people will look for it on the Collections page rather than the Departments page. You’re right, perhaps we don’t need redundancy, especially since users might just use “Search” when they’re looking for contact info. We’re trying to anticipate how different users might look for information; perhaps we’re not guessing right. We’ll think more about this.
The contents of the “Research Databases” section depend in part on how much we can integrate SubjectsPlus into the site. We definitely need the A-Z list of databases. We’d also like this to be the home for New and Trial Databases, and maybe even Most Popular Databases at some point. We included “By subject” because there was so much distress when we removed it from the current CMS. Perhaps with “Subject Guides” in the sidebar, if we don’t include “By subject” this time around, no one will miss it. We’ll think more about this too!
This is a great post. I think I’ll point may LIS Advisory Group and liaison depts to it.
Just to repeat publicly a message I sent to ILL in October:
“Your prompt service permitted me to get the sources (electronically, through NeXpress, and through ordinary ILL) that I needed to review an article for publication on an obscure topic. Through you, we have the resources of a research library. It’s much appreciated!”
I like that you break out the types of technolgies, but I expected to see this under Tools (not Uses), which is where I first went, then was frustrated to just see them named with no clue about what some do. I’m guessing you’ll add content to describe them when you click on them – but I hate clicking thru levels and lots of hirarchies. I’d rather have things listed out on one page and scroll if necessary (of course if more of the page weren’t taken up by the menus, you’d have more content room). I guess I’d prefer to combine what you have under Uses with what you have under Tools, since the distinction is unclear to me. That is, present your tools arranged by type with brief description on one page and maybe have a drop-down menu or side box of the technologies by name A-Z for quick access. I like that you have buzzwords and I like that you have stories (though I really don’t like that term used to describe projects but I’ll have to get used to it given the main homepage). Also, I think you should seriously consider not having the right hand sidebar on subpages, esp. the stories page, because it limits the main content severely. Thanks for seeking input.
this is an excellent and helpful description!
I like the “dark” color scheme of the new website but am confused as to why I do not see our Middlebury School colors there more, why there are no images of our beutiful campus on the homepage (the bardcode on the front makes us look like an engineering school not a liberal arts school), and why there is an overabundance of text and lack of images?
I agree with Brenda about being confused between Uses and Tools, what I was expecting to see where, and in particular the list of ‘tools’ with no annotation about what tools can do what. (Maybe that’s coming?) When I see the word ‘Uses’ in the left menu, I think “Uses for what?” Then I remember that I’m looking at the Curricular Technologies page, so it must be “Uses for curricular technologies” and then I get stumped. (Admittedly, I’m probably not in your primary target demographic.) I really like that in the opening paragraph of the ‘homepage’ you say “… how it can be _used_, what _tools_, …” but “Uses” as a category for what you’ve got listed under it just doesn’t work for me. They seem to be more like Purposes or Objectives or … I dunno. The more I think about it, the more I see that ‘Uses’ is about as good as it’s going to get.
Under uses (and the note says there’s duplication, so maybe this is part of that) – “Research” and “Data Collection and Analysis” are listed separately. I’m trying to think of ‘research’ that doesn’t involve some kind of ‘data collection/analysis’ and I’m not coming up with anything. I see that you’re categorizing what I used to call ‘literature research’ (now perhaps better termed informational research?) as “Research.” Information is just data in a language. I’d lump it all under ‘research’ – that could cut down the length of your left-hand menu list a bit, if that’s an objective.
Also, I’m certainly not a musician, but I would never think to look under ‘audio’ to find how to create sheet music. Since Dan’s on your team, I assume you’ve thought through that and if that’s ‘intuitive’ for a musician, then so be it.
Despite these persnickety comments, I do think overall you’ve done a good job of organizing a lot of content very well. Thank you!
Take it or leave it!:
1) I appreciate the value of brevity on a website but sometimes taking out words obscures meaning. Uses and Stories don’t mean anything in particular to me (also, when I first read “uses” in my head I pronounced it the other way). I would consider renaming Uses to “Technology uses” tools to “Technology tools” and stories to “Tools in action”.
Also, in retrospect, I didn’t even read the first paragraph you have on your page—I just went straight to the left-hand menu and started clicking. That said, maybe someone who does read that text would understand what Uses, Tools, and Stories mean in the context you’ve set up and would remember “I am on the CT site, these are Uses as they relate to CT…” but apparently not me
2) Categories under Uses are good. I didn’t know what “visualization” meant but I clicked on it and found out.
3) Also, Re: left-hand menu under Uses. To figure out what “visualization” meant, I clicked on the left hand menu, not the list on the center of the page.
4) After visiting the Uses page, I expected the Tools page to behave in the same way with regard to the left hand menu. I personally liked seeing the subpages listed, but I don’t think the nav. method you choose matters, so long as it’s consistent throughout your site.
I checked NERCOMP again and Michael Lascarides’ presentation is now posted at the site for this workshop (including some of the stats and details on Infomaki.) http://www.nercomp.org/data/media/20091109-LascaridesUsability.pdf
His main points (some of which we already do, yay!):
1. Watch your patrons do stuff
2. Look at what’s on the screens of the computers in your library
3. Send feedback to your vendors
4. Use Google Analytics
5. Decide what metrics are appropriate to measure your success
6. Set up a Twitter search feed to see what people are saying about your facility
7. Look for stories in your search terms
8. Write down 10 things your patrons are passionate about
9. Start blogging about those things
10. Share content
11. Play (esp. with the line between online and physical)
12. Try Infomaki
Hi Carrie
1) I like the change in name to Contact Us. Makes sense to me, and sounds less bureaucratic than “Library Departments”
2) I like the changes to Lib Collections in theory better than in the actual mock up. My suggestion would be more like this
-LIBRARY COLLECTIONS
—MAIN LIBRARY
——COLLEGE ARCHIVES
——GOV DOCS
——SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
——VT
——DIG
—ARMSTRONG
—MUSIC
—DAVISON
—WILLIAM TELL
—OTHER COLLECTIONS ON CAMPUS
In other words (in case the formatting gets screwed up in this post), to nest the specific collections (archives, etc.) under Main Library, which is where they actually live. (I know: “Dig” doesn’t really live anywhere, but the work is done mostly in Main).
It just seems a little weird to me to list a bunch of branches and then list “Collections” separately on the same level.
T
Actually I prefer leaving it as Library Departments. Users aren’t always looking for contact info. and they may have something specific in mind like reserves, ILL, so they are looking for those terms or a close approximation (departments). They may be looking for documentation, policies, structure, etc. I’d rather see a Contact Us as a separate page that gives a general phone and email and then a most frequently requested (Reserves, ILL, Circulation, Research Assistance/Ask a Librarian and a link to Departments or the Directory for more additional contact info. If you’d really like to combine the two, then label it Departments and Contacts.
On a related note, I don’t know what you intend for the center of the page, but I think we absolutely need a link for Reserves and ILL front and center on the main page. You have Borrowing on the side menu but not Reserves or ILL. I think the latter two are even more heavily sought – all 3 need to be on the front page.
As for Collections, I’m not satisfied with the arrangement. I completely agree that we should reduce the nesting. In fact I think we should reduce it even more. If I’m looking for special collections, I should be able to click on Collections and not have to click on a 2nd “Collections” – it should be right there on the page and I prefer to see all this info in the center of the page, not just in the sidebar menu. Why not simply expand out the hierarchy on the page itself so that users would see Main Library as a heading, and underneath that each collection listed, then below that Armstrong Science Library and highlight anything special like Map collection and so forth. I don’t think we need the middle of the main collections page devoted to a long general description in large print. I’d rather see the first part of the description you have in regular sized font with ..more (like users are accustomed to with blog posts) and then each library or collection listed and described similarly. Also get rid of the right side bar stuff at this level – its taking up real estate and forcing everything to have to be on subplages. You could put library hours and Ask a librarian in the left menu (but keep them in the right menu for the main Library page). That or make it part of a header that goes across the top page of all pages. I just hate having subpages crammed into tiny space.
Also, new users have no idea what Davison library is or William Tell. Spell it out like you did for Armstrong. Thus Davison (Breadloaf) library, and William Tell (Monterey) library. Brand New users still might not know what Breadloaf is but within a few weeks our new students, faculty and staff will have heard of Breadloaf, while you’d easily find seniors who have no clue what Davison is or William Tell.
I can explain all this better in person. Stop in!
I agree with Brenda Re: Collections page arrangement. I think on this page it would make sense to have the subpages listed in a “subpage list” right in the middle of the page (see CT page for an example: http://midd2.middlebury.edu/offices/technology/ct/uses) This way you’d take care of the nesting issues and subpage nav. depth issues all at once.
I agree with Brenda about ILL and Reserves being prominent, and I like Terry’s idea of nesting the collections that are held in Main.
I have a comment about the opening paragraph on the “Library Collections” page (I know – you’re not asking about that; too bad).
Currently it says:
“Our collection is particularly strong in languages to support our summer Language School programs. ”
The summer LS programs evolved out of an institutional focus on international studies/languages that predates the establishment of the LSs (well-established though they are). Yes, we get materials for the LSs that we might not get if they weren’t here, but… it’s kind of a chicken-and-egg thing. Regardless, I think it would be better to state something more inclusive of language teaching than just the summer LSs. One possibility:
“Our collection is particularly strong in languages to support Middlebury College’s focus on international and cross-cultural studies.”
1. Library Departments: “Contact” is fine with me if quick access is what you want. If you use contact, however, you must have an exhaustive list of all possible points of contact, as “contacting is what you’re facilitating. When you list departments, you limit the list to what you’re defining as departments.
2. Library Collections: You bring the problem of having 11 entries on yourselves by confusing libraries and collections. To students, campus libraries are places to go to for specific materials or to study in specific locations. Collections are subsets of the information resources we have on hand, usually noted by subject and/or format (i.e. Vermont, Postcards, Flanders Ballads, etc). Rid yourselves of one or the other in this category, and don’t feel you have to be exhaustive with collections. Why, for instance, must we single out gov docs? The government is merely one publisher–albeit a large one–among many that offer materials on subjects in the general collection.
3. I’d like to see an “About Us” link on the left side that offers org info on LIS and the library. It’d be like the link we all use when we go to other library pages, as some of us do often.
Contact Information — Would it look awkward to label this “Contact/Departments” or something similar to satisfy both sides?