Web Things to Do Next

Web Opac things to do:

• Work with opacmenu.html, mainmenu.html
  
• Use opac-gray-map.htm as base
• Add isbn to dropbox
• Check for any other additions to dropbox

• Revise the advanced search kind of pages (Eng, Span)
  
• Advanced Keyword
• Srchmod.html, too
• Remove everything from dropboxes except:
  
  • Any field
    
  • Author
    
  • Title
    
  • General subject
    


• Globally replace the date

Libweb things to do:

• W3 links page (done)
  
• Begin the /help/ pages
• Ask
• Guides
• Finish the FAQs
• Check to see where to put in folder structure
• Check links to reflect

Spanish Opac

After an email exchange with Teresa and Jonathan B, I solicited translations of the English Opac new look page from several people. Although we leaned toward one particular translation, upon the advice of Tina Buck, I asked Susan Thomason to have a final look. She consulted with Richard, who said we ought to wait until the College decides how to handle the Spanish language translation of the ACC Web site.

Since we've had a Spanish Opac for 5 years, I didn't think this would be an optimal solution for us. So, I've changed that part of the Opac page to a list similar to what we now have, thus, cowardly circumventing the problem.

The page can be seen in the staging directory at
http://alicat.austincc.edu:2082/opacmenu_spi.html

Continuing with E-Resources pages conversion

I've modified the extant redesigned pages with the recommendations of the cmte:

• AtoZ list (AtoZ-new.htm)
  
• Browse by Subject (SubGen.htm)
• Research Shortcuts (Shortcuts.htm)

I am continuing to working with the other pages:

• Online E-Books (ebooks-new.htm)
• Recommended Web Pages (w3Links.htm)

It occurs to me that I need to begin a table of old vs new page names for our reference.

We need to begin to think about the template for the Research Shortcut pages. I really hate to abandon the collage graphic on the left of the current pages. I did work hard on those and think they bring something to the page.

I did mock up one Shortcut page, Anthropology/Geography with the graphic and I like it. Maybe others will, too.

PostNote: The individual FAQ pages are coming along nicely now that I have a routine going. But, that is in the HELP section.

Adjusting to the insertion of Know How logo on Guides

After receiving information from Teresa that she had inserted the Know How logo into all of the study guides but hadn't made backup copies, this is what I did/am doing:

• Informed the Web Cmte that I had backup copies.
• Used Bulk Rename to rename all the index.htm and the other copy to
• index-apr06.htm
• filename-apro6.htm
  
• Note: unfortunately, unlike Autoreplace which can replace text within all selected folders, Bulk Rename must work with one folder at a time to replace filenames. However, it was easy to set up what was to be replaced.
• Used suffix replace (which inserts a string as a suffix before the .extension) to insert "-apr06" into the selected files in a folder.
• Then, just opened each folder, selected the index and copy, and clicked Rename. Went very quickly.

However, we now had/have another issue -- the unsophisticated look of the colored former header graphics [maroon #9c3952] [green #006300] next to the inserted Know How graphic with it's own color [#0098d9] which did not harmonize at all.

It seems to me that replacing the old graphic with a black and white graphic could be the solution, so

• I brought a couple of the old graphics into the graphics program I use to see if I could find a close matching font to use.

• After several tries, I found that Futura XBlk BT worked best and toned down the stark black by changing to a font color of #404040.
• There is still the issue of the serif "library.austincc.edu" on top of the Know How graphic which means that we have three separate fonts in a header, but that serif font has always looked odd and no one seems to mind except me.

• I have made two replacements and now need to seek the opinion of the Web Cmte.

FAQ Pages further thoughts

In looking at the FAQ list page, the green box with the header "Categories" seemed superfluous , so I simply deleted it -- rather, I commented it out just in case it is better to have it.

I experimented with putting all of the FAQs for a category on one page, but it really did not work well. So, I guess we will continue to have them one to a page.

I am experimenting with having links to related FAQs at the end of the featured FAQ. Of course, we have always linked to other resources within FAQs.

Variation 837 of the Browse Subj, etc. pages

I rather liked the lighter, cleaner look of the FAQ draft. So...

I decided to try to mock up a similar look for the databases pages. I started with the Browse All E-Resources by General Subjects page.

This is what I did:

• Made the left navigation box into a tab-like box across two columns.
• Pulled the "Don't Know What to Do..." box back out of the right box and into a box spanning two columns under the navigation box.
• Created a column next to the "Don't Know box" with red letters to draw attention to the subjects TOC.
• Made the box containing the database links wider and centered it under the area containing the navigation, TOC, and right "Need Help" box.
• Added the links to the icon legend and create a personalized account to the "Needs Help" box.

I think this page looks less crowded. But have some concerns that it is not as clear that the purpose of this page is to go to the general subject links.

Altogther, though, I like it better.

FAQ list page draft

Initial steps:

• Got ideas from Web Cmte
• Reviewed their ideas and suggested sites
• Checked my previous searches for sites and reviewed those

Things I tried to do:

• Keep the look as uncluttered as possible.
• Keep the list on one page.
• Eliminate the miscellaneous category by merging into other categories

What I've done in the draft:

• I liked the idea of showing the most often used FAQs as I saw on the NCSU Libraries site.
• I looked at those most often viewed on the Web reports.
• Used the top 7
  
• Some of the top 20 surprised me.
• Most didn't. See report.
• Structure of the page (help1.css)
• Kept the right Need Help box but removed the bgcolor and only 3 elements.
• Put Most Frequently Asked box across two columns
• Created a table to group the list of all FAQs
• Created block headers for the categories.
• Made a TOC to jump to a category.
• Haven't made the links to each faq active yet.

One styling issue I haven't figured out yet:

• Why the gap between the "Categories" header and the next subcategories headers?
• gap appears in Firefox; not IE
• probably the cumulative effect of something that Firefox reads
  

Changes to the Browse all by Subjects page

I made several changes suggested by Red and Teresa yesterday afternoon.

Moved or duplicated (mostly duplicated):

• CQ entries to History, Government & Social Sciences
• Handbook of Texas, ditto
• Current Biography to General & Reference (moved)
  
• Added: Grove resources which had been left off to Humanities & Literature
• MasterFILE Premier to Technology & Workforce
• AccessScience, ditto

w3 pages:

• removed all the specific page links
• created a link to the w3 listing page section that was applicable, e.g.,
• Sciences Web Pages (Recommended by ACC Librarians)

Did some cleanup of the spreadsheet and database that has all of the eresources info listed.

As per Jon's suggestions:

• Put Business & Company Resources center in Business & Economics - was inadvertantly left off the list.
• Added LISTA to the general section.
  

Steve requested that we add the special Pubmed link that limits to ACC materials that is referenced on the Health & Life Sciences Shortcut page.

• I added the links on the AtoZ List and on the Browse Subj List.
• In addition, I added a link to more information and did a popup window with an explanation and instructions similar to the "Don't Know Where to Start"
  

Dilemma of wrapping text in the "Need Help?" box

The structure of the right "Need Help?" box prevented the entry of long resource titles without wrapping text in the Don't know where to begin? section, e.g.,

• Academic Search Premier
• Encyclopedia Britannica Online

The options that came to mind were

• Use a tooltip box like the one we have on the homepage with links to the resources.
• One of the reasons for NOT doing this is that many of the students who might want to use that option, may not think to wand over those words.
  
• Make a clickable link to another page.
• This seemed like a good option but I think that a smaller popup-like box would be better.
  
• So, I made a short html page (wheretostart.htm) and added the code for opening a window of a certain size in a certain position on the screen so as to give the information but preserve the screen behind it.
• a href="#" onClick="window.open('wheretostart.htm', 'newWnd',
  'width=450,height=300,left=350,top=250 ')".....
  

Making Find Words Larger on ThreeCols.htm

The task was this:

Figure out how to make the words on left top cell bigger on ThreeCols.htm

• Possibly use a graphic instead of words (option 1)
  
• The problem links:
  
• Find Books, Course Reserves, Videos
• Find Services for Faculty & Students


• Could make the header FIND… with the links being (option 2)
  
• Books, Course Reserves, Video
• Articles and Research Info
• Information on the Internet
• Help and Tutorials
• Services for Faculty & Students
• Library Lending Policies

What I did:

• I opted not to use graphics which present a loading problem for those with modems.
• I decided to work with option 2. This is what I did:
• Changed the column header [css style id="search2"] wording to "Find ..."
• Did not need to change the style in stylesheet..
• Removed the word "find" from each of the links as above.
• Tried an inline style on the links to make the font larger but it didn't work as well as I liked.
  
• Added a new style to the stylesheet library.css :
• .announce2 {border-left: 1px solid #CCCCCC; font-size: .95em; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.3; padding: 10px;}
  
• This seems to work O.K.
  

Design tasks to be added today 4/18/06

Leftover to finish from yesterday:

Suggestion:
Widen the center column.

Ideas re: above:

• The left navigation bar/menu needed to be narrowed (leftbox css width,paddings, and margins)
• The right help box needed no changes.
• The middle box/column needed to be widened (midbox css width, paddings, and margins)
• Problem: Something seems to be overriding the 760px width as evidenced by the header graphic appearing to be too short.
• Ideas:
  ---- Check all box/column widths, margins, padding (all seem OK)
  ---- Check all tables for cellspacing and cellpadding. Found a cellpadding of 5px and changed to 0px. (fixed)

Today:

Suggestion:
Remove w3 links from A-Z and All by Subject Lists

Ideas re: above:

• The links are currently used as they are on the A-Z list and on the Shortcut pages so I am reluctant to exclude them from the lists above where they would have more exposure.
• Might try intermixing them within the appropriate sections. (Mock up.)
• Result: It makes the list too long to interfile them in the A-Z list. Will have to test in the subject list.

Suggestion:
Revise this page:
From Home Page A at http://library.austincc.edu/acc2level/plain.htm I clicked on "Find Info on the Internet" and got to the "Search for Information on the Internet / Webpage" page at

http://library.austincc.edu/acc2level/internet.htm. (Jon Luckstead)

LS Web design tasks for today 4/17/06

Wait for responses from the Web Committee re: Eresources Pages

• Then ask what the eresources folder "index.htm" should be




• (Browse Eresources by General Subjects)


• http://library.austincc.edu/eresources/SubGen.htm


• Some new page with all the links maybe modeled off the three column student ACC page -- http://www.austincc.edu/current/


• Note: Probably should be the more graphic version of a text-based page

Figure out how to make the words on left top cell bigger on ThreeCols.htm

• Possibly use a graphic instead of words


• The problem links:




• Find Books, Course Reserves, Videos


• Find Services for Faculty & Students



• Could make the header FIND… with the links being




• Books, Course Reserves, Videos


• Articles and Research Info


• Information on the Internet


• Help and Tutorials


• Services for Faculty & Students


• Library Lending Policies

Other things to do:

1. Have all librarians look at two home page versions


2. Work on template for FAQs


3. Web Opac changes




• Change the black header nav bar on opac


• Instead of What's New >> Library Home


• Work with Eddie on Span Opac wording


• Make OpacGray the opacmenu.html

How I should have been using this blog

It occurred to me that I should have been inputting my To Do lists re: the revision of the library web site on this blog instead of just thoughtful ideas of mine or others about web sites, in general. As an aside, I think it just a matter of habit -- not used to having a public forum to record these things -- and an opinion that most bloggers are somewhat arrogant in thinking that others "really" want to know what they think.

I should be using this to document the evolution of a website redesign. I'll try to think about how I can do this so that the next time, we can avoid some of the tedious things we've tried. Since others, i.e., the Web Committee, can add to this website, they should feel free to do so. That they have not is either an indication that I was not clear about the purpose of this site in the beginning or they really don't have anything to add.

I'll try to figure out at way to include the nitty gritty of what transpire/s/d by linking to earlier documents and lists beginning now so that there is an archival record. If I can find time to think about how to do it...

Maximizing the research of library resources

We need to be looking ahead -- outside the box -- expanding our horizons.... I know we don't want to be the bleeding edge, but we also need to be more cognizant of the skills of our user base which range widely from rock and chisel to expert electronic multi-tasking. Is there a better way of providing both a learning and a research environment for our students? Can we provide... say multiple portals ... within the constraints of the ACC Web context? Will ACC Content Management be too long in development to provide us with the necessary tools to meet user wishes and needs?

Earlier in the blog article quoted below, she mentions the NCSU catalog we've mentioned before and the Primo product from Ex Libris. NCSU is an in-house product, the like of which would be possible for us with a CMS and some programmer dedicated to library resources. Can't see that happening anytime soon, can you?

From one of Lorcan Dempseys blogs...

We have been used to thinking about the catalog and the integrated library system as at the centre. But as more comes onto the network we are surrounded by many systems to help us do our research, learning and play. This is one reason why I think we have seen a gradual shift in focus over time from database to website to workflow.

And this means that it becomes more important to think about how library resource and functionality play well with the "real design center", the network, and the multiple other network systems that consume the attention of library users. This suggests that we need good ways of solving the many to many issue within the search engines (how do you connect users to resources that they are authorized to use without cluttering the user experience with resources they are not authorized to use), and we believe that the developing OpenWorldCat program is one way of doing this. And it suggests that we need to make library resources more 'service-able' in ways which facilitate their integration with user workflows and other applications.