Documenting library@austincc.edu account uses

I am documenting the ways we use the library@austincc.edu email account.

This account is used for others (from outside of Library Services) to communicate comments, questions, requests to us.

There are automatic subject lines generated by our own email forms as well as by our LivePerson Chat service:

1-- (Ask a Librarian)
Many links on multiple web pages solicit user interaction, e.g., Get Help. These use the email form that generates the subject line, "Ask a Librarian Email."

2-- (Feedback)
The library home page has a feedback on the bottom which uses an email form that generates the subject line, "Website Feedback Email."

3-- (LivePerson )
When no one answers the chat invitation inititated by our LivePerson Chat subscription (or an Ask Academic bypass), an option is given to email a question; that subject line is "When you were offline (via LivePerson)."

4-- (ILL)
ACC employees and students can submit an interlibrary loan request online; that subject line is "Interlibrary Loan Request: username."

5-- (No specific subject line)
Other legitimate requests come directly to that email with no subject line. [Note: The library web manager has tried to minimize spam by utilizing an email form, with Captcha, linked to all instances of the character phrase "library@austincc.edu" on the library website. Periodically, she checks to see if other web authors have used mailto with that email address.]


OTHER LS DEPARTMENTAL ACCOUNTS REPORTED:

• III-related accounts:
• tsalrsad - used for listservs [ma]
  -- no one sends email to it
  -- no standard subject line
  -- can probably go away when departmental emails will expire in the summer
• other campus ones - rgclrsad, rvslrsad, etc. [ma]
  -- no one sends email to them
  -- can go away when departmental emails will expire in the summer
• lsnotice - used for notices and responses [mg]
  -- no standard subject line (But...When it is sent out to others there is a standard subject line: ACC Library Notice. So, if a recipient uses the reply feature, it will show "Re: ACC Library Notice" However, sometimes people just use the email address to send back some explanation, etc., and then there is no standard subject line.)
  -- important - needs to remain in some form


• E-Resources Librarian
• ereslib - used to register admin access to vendor platforms primarily [aw]
  -- receive vendor email
  -- no standard subject line
  -- will need to continue in some form
• Other????

Printer Friendly Pages in Skyline Webpac

I've begun to experiment in the Staging directory using the example mentioned in the Webpac wiki for this topic. It seems to work well.

The page I used was the recommended bib_display.html which is the page which governs the display of a bibliographic record.

To see how this works,

• search anything in the catalog and click on title to display the record;
• click on Print Preview to see how that record will look when printed.

WHAT I DID:

• Created a style sheet called printX.css which sets certain iii existing classes to display:none. For example: .topLogoDiv {display:none;} eliminates the top banner from printing.
• Created a new class -- .nonprinting {display:none} to apply to specific divisions or spans in different pages when we don't want those divisions or spans to be affected globally.
  

  In the case of bib_display.html, I added class="nonprinting" to three page elements:
  

  • The non-named division surrounding the token [!--{navrow}-->
  • The non-named division surrounding the ResourceTable and Cover image.
  • The table cell containing the token [!--{recordlink}-->.

  
  
• Added a line to the wwwoptions INSERTTAG_INHEAD option to call the new style sheet. --- [link rel="stylesheet" media="print" type="text/css" href="/screens/printX.css">

TO BE DONE:
-- Decide which other pages need modification and which elements to modify.

Improvements to the Catalog

We've never applied different style sheets for printing. This is an area we should explore. Information can be found on the Tips for Example Sets.
(http://csdirect.iii.com/lswiki/WebPAC/ExampleSetTips)

Need to review other tips before migrating to the 2009 example set -- maybe next year.

LS Web Structure and Content repeat of 2/8/11 email

Because we have new people around who were not here during the major redesigns of the library web site, perhaps we need to think about the history of the library web site and why we try to not vary too much from the templates we currently have. The library web site tries to follow the basic guidelines of the ACC Web Advisory Cmte and the best practices of web design.

Originally, we were supposed to use the ACC Web templates only (through Contribute) and I had to engage in the battle of how the library website delivers different content from the ACC Web site which is mostly a PR mechanism and information "about" different college departments and how students should interact with them. Since there were people in the Public Information and College Marketing (the department who was given the charge to oversee ACC web sites) who were familiar with and respected what the library had done in the past, they were able to convince the ACC Webmaster that we really do know what we are doing and they could trust us as a second tier site (one click from the ACC home page) to blend in with the ACC web site and stick to the CSS styles that the college wants. We also received the approval of Richard Smith to have a look different from the other IRT web sites.

So, that is why we have the kinds of templates we use and why we don't vary too much from them. Consistency in appearance is what ACC wants and will let us do what we need to as long as we look like the rest of the ACC Web site and follow standard best practices.

There is another chapter to this story. The IRT Sys Admin for Web and Streaming Media, Maria Youngman, is in charge of the redesign and standardization of IRT Web sites. She worked with me during the library website redesign and her intention was that we create real templates to be used with Contribute so that library authors wouldn't be able to change anything but content.

In reality, in the beginning, ACC stylesheets and templates weren't really workable for us and I had to recreate them to accommodate our needs and continue to look like ACC. It was agreed that since the library does not have very many page authors, we didn't really have to go through the arduous creation of Contribute templates as long as we didn't have too many different looks to our pages. This is why we pretty much stick to the basic types of model pages, i.e., faux templates, that we currently have. And, why as the Library Web Manager, I sometimes appear to be too controlling about the format of our web pages.

It's also one of the reasons we sought out and choose LibGuides (now CampusGuides) for our help and subject guides. Our authors have more flexibility that way within certain parameters and they don't have to know and use the stylesheets governing the library web pages.

--

Mobile web coding for phone numbers

The LibraryAnywhere group email had useful information today which may resolve an issue I have noticed on phones other than iPhones.

On iPhones, when a text string which look like a phone number is listed, tapping that number will allow the user to call it on the phone. I do know that if you highlight the number on an Android, it will recognize it as a phone number and let you call the number. The method below is said to make automatic calls of the number on phones in addition to iPhones.

By using link coding similar to this, we should be able to make our numbers callable:

href=tel:+11234567890 = (123) 456-7890

The number code includes information to alert any phone anywhere that the number is for a call to the United States.

We need to test this on available types of phones.