The University of Southern Mississippi Library

Here we are again, ready to review another web site. In this installment we will review the library website of the University of Southern Mississippi. This is a website that I have some small experience with, but have not yet mastered.


http://lib.usm.edu/

Click image to enlarge - Source: http://lib.usm.edu/

New User Experience: A


Let's look at the site as if we're doing research, shall we? The first thing that I see is the Catalog Quick Search, very nice! It's there on the page, ready for a simple search - leaving me with nothing to do but type and click 'search.' The 'classic catalog' selection for access to their advanced search is not, in my opinion, named very appropriately. 'Advanced search' would be more direct and instantly inform users as to its purpose.


Unfortunately, the 'classic search' isn't really an advanced search. It is slightly more advanced but does not provide truly advanced options. Within the page that opens there is a small link to the far right side of the screen that offers an advanced search. The first presentation of this search is very strong, however, the advanced search positioning is less than ideal.


The system is, however, simple to use and very convenient. Now, what about the databases? Directly beneath the catalog search is a link to 'Databases & Resources by Subject.' Again, very convenient and easy to find! The list of subjects is simple and I quickly manage to find the history page. Looking at the databases, a grammatically correct explanation of each and every database is provided! Each database also has a link to a detailed user guide.


The database section is certainly impressive and just before I leave I notice that at the top of this page are links to websites, media, books, and reference materials on this subject! As I go back to the homepage I notice that there are database and catalog links at the top of the page as well, in case you do not want to filter by subject. Although there are some mild issues, I feel that all the wonderful extras certainly overcome these.


Ease of Navigation: A


Without leaving the homepage, I can search the catalog, e-journals, reference, the website, and Google scholar - all by using the small tabs on top of the simple catalog search! I particularly like the inclusion of Google scholar, enabling students to search on scholar without having to leave the library website. Library websites need further inclusion and interaction with the internet as a whole, allowing students to use those tools through the website rather than having to leave the 'library space' in order to utilize them.


Some useful links are provided in a drop box at the top left, along with a convenient news reader on the right.   Truly, they managed to fit an impressive array of information into one page in an organized manner. Just about everything I can think of searching for seems to have a link on the homepage. Navigating through a couple of webpages I find that each page is organized simply and provides standard navigation links at the top left.


Wealth of Content: A


Time to look for the reference information! There is no reference contact information on the home page, as there often isn't, nor is there any direct method for contacting the reference personnel. There is, however, a prominent 'Ask-A-Librarian' link. On this page there is an e-mail form; a form for setting up a research consultation; links to FAQs, guides, and tutorials; and phone numbers for the various library branches. Instead of a reference number there is an 'information services' contact number. This isn't terrible, however, I wouldn't expect an undergraduate student to feel very confident calling this number. Despite this, however, most of the website's pages contain a link to the 'Ask-A-Librarian' page - definitely a bonus!


Summary:


I honestly expected to find more wrong with this website than I did. The website certainly contained many flaws, however, the sheer quantity and quality of its extra features were so impressive that I found myself unable to mark down the grades. There were some instances were clearer terminology could be used and I still think that added a quick 'Ref desk phone number' entry on the home page wouldn't hurt matters any - but all in all, USM's website stands out as a very impressive and functional one.

Final Grade: A

Spring Hill College Library

This hits a bit close to home, as I work with people responsible for these pages. In order to be fair, however, I decided that it made sense to start with the places most familiar to me. I'm not biased - i'm quite capable of hating on everyone's website equally. ;)


http://shclibrary.shc.edu/
I want to apologize for the double image posting. A homepage is much like a resume and should generally present all the most concise and pertinent information on one page, sometimes two. This homepage, however, stretches down to - depending on your screen resolution - over two pages. I actually had to cut a small portion out of the middle to keep it from taking up three images. Not the best way to start us off.

Click each image to enlarge - Source: http://shclibrary.shc.edu/

New User Experience: C

Let's start then, shall we? The first thing I see is the image carousel. Certainly not a bad thing to catch your eye as its aesthetically pleasing and provides mention of some interesting materials. Clicking on these opens a new window to the catalog, which isn't my favorite thing given that people generally do not want a half-dozen new windows open, but i'll get over it. There are some simple navigational links at the top: college home page, library home page, library hours, reserve a room form, and 'moodle' - the online class system. Things are looking good so far, except... where is the research information?

In the middle is a section for research guides. Is this what I want? Well I was just going to search for some books, but I guess this can't hurt. I usually start these searches by looking into history - so let's go to the history guide. There are two of them, so I choose the western civilization - european history guide and it pops up in a new window. Again, I generally consider it best not to have navigation within the same website open in multiple windows, but it isn't the worst website crime.

These guides are split up into specific subject areas and that isn't terribly useful for me. They might be if I had a more specific area in which I were searching. I will choose 'medieval civilization' anyway so that I can see what they look like, but i'm beginning to think that this section isn't what I really wanted - I wanted to look for books and articles. Before I move to the next page however, I notice that there is some information about the reference librarian who created the page. A facebook link and an email address - very nice!

Moving to Medieval Civilization I find myself suddenly bombarded by information. There is some very good information on some pertinent databases and other very useful information, however, this is a bit much for the casual searcher. I'm not looking to do that in-depth of research and so I think it's time to move on. This looks to be a very useful feature, however, I do not believe it's appropriately placed at the top of the homepage.

So back to the search, to the homepage! There is some information on the left and right but none of it looks useful to me at the moment. There is a 'Burke Global Search' on the right side of the screen - what's this about? Fortunately, before I click on it I notice an area labeled 'Find' at the very bottom of my screen. I scroll down to investigate and finally find small links to the catalog, e-journal titles, e-resources, e-books and more. This is certainly not the most prominent placing for the library's catalog - and considering how long it took for me to find it, I can't say that i'm terribly pleased - but I was at least able to find it before looking into the 'global search'.

Alright, I click on the catalog and it brings me to a catalog search that is simple, easy to use, and which probably should have been on the home page. Power search is easy to find and use. All and all the catalog search page is simple and fairly well designed. There isn't any information explaining the features and those would be good to have as i'm not sure what this 'not' feature in the advanced search does. :p Clicking 'go back' doesn't take me home and clicking the link to Library Home opens a new window again, which isn't what I wanted at all.

Let's move on and check out the databases. Where are they? E-journals and E-books are pretty self-explainatory, but what are e-resources? Fortunately for me, I already know that this is where i'll find the databases, but what of the new user? How are they supposed to know what e-resources are? I click the link and move onto the page, finding a long list of databases. However, only some of these have explainations about what they are and those that are provided are generally pretty scanty. There is a useful feature to view the databases by subject - and it is a very useful addition to the page. The 'Library Home' link from here works properly, opening within the same window and making me feel a little bit better about the website.

Now back to this Burke Global Search thing for a moment. It looks simple enough, almost like a google search bar, but the advanced search provides a host of databases wherein one can search. This looks useful, but what does it really do? There is no explaination of any sort, nothing to guide the new user in what to use it for nor in how to use it. I know that this is a federated search of the library's databases, but how is anyone else supposed to know that?

There is a bit too much information in some places. Although the website has some really useful features, it would benefit immensely from a different design. Also, the lack of explanation for various features would likely leave a new undergraduate student confused about the various tools. This earns the site a solid C, though fortunately - many of these problems could be easily rectified.

Ease of Navigation: C

It's clear to me from our previous efforts that the links on this website are not uniform. Some open in a new window - which I generally consider to be less than ideal - yet some instances of the same links open within the same window. The home page is neither simple nor very easy to navigate, with the catalog placement being small and less than eye-catching. The presence of a persistent navigation bar at the top is a big plus for the website, it simply needs to have the links repaired. This area has some flaws, but nothing absolutely devastating.

Wealth of Content: B

As I said before, there are some very nice features on this website. The federated search is useful and there are several useful subject guides that would aide with in-depth research. Now where is the reference information? As i've said - I really believe that reference information should be prevalent on all pages, particularly the homepage. There is no contact information, however, there is an 'ask a librarian' link that provides plenty of contact information and even a live-chat box. This same live-chat box is available on the homepage, however, there is no explaination available as to what it is there for. Some sort of explainatory text would make its purpose much more apparent.

Summary:

The website really isn't that bad. It has some very nice features but suffers from its organization. With more explaination and a revised design, the website could prove to be much more user friendly. Simplicity is the key. The website has its problems, but it really is still rather useable.

Final Grade: C+



The University of South Alabama Library

I decided to start at the beginning - my beginning in LIS. As an undergrad, young and confused about where I wanted to go, I found myself working within USA's main library. Spending three years on those grounds first sparked my interest in library science.


USA's Library Web Site


Click to Enlarge - Source: http://library.southalabama.edu/

 So here we go!


New User Experience: C


So, I'm a new student - like a new born babe lost amongst the woods. I wander into USA's library website looking to do some research for my first big paper. WHAM!.. a great big empty page, and my eyes are immediately drawn up to the top left - to the large navigation area. It has colors and it's virtually the largest section of the page. It certainly provides some useful links, however, not a single one of these has anything to do with finding my materials.


My eyes abandon this section of the site and passively note the tiny website logo. Oh my, isn't the purpose of a logo to be eye-catching? I admit that i've got a fairly large monitor, but this logo is pretty tiny. Zooming the site in, the logo is larger but still pretty small and doesn't do much to draw my attention. In this case, I suppose that might be better - because the logo doesn't really offer anything useful unless the hope is to draw your eye to the information below it.


The search is in the center! This isn't a bad aspect, however, having the catalog search itself on the page, as some websites have, would be more useful. The informative calendar is a nice addition, but not really necessary on the main page. Despite the placement of the search being neither ideal nor eye-catching, it doesn't take one long to find these tools on this simple web page. A victory for simple design.


The links at least are easy to read and are laid out in a manner that I can quickly skim through. So, back to the search! Hm.. catalog, what the devil is this? I find myself on a fairly simple search screen with instructions in searching and boolean operators beneath it, certainly not a bad thing. Everything seems in order, let's go back to the search and look at these 'database' things!


Oh my.. i'm suddenly presented with a haphazard table filled with strange words. If I manage not to be driven off - I can search down and notice that there is a list of databases along with descriptions. However, the descriptions are scanty and not all resources provide descriptions. In fact, these descriptions don't even use a standard grammar or capitalization. Some begin with capitals, some do not, and so on. All in all, it's a bit of a mess that looks like it was thrown together in a hurry. The only real salvation is that there are, at least, subject sorting links at the left.


Ease of Navigation: D


To be perfectly honest, I am not entirely certain where I should begin with this. Therefore, I am just going to trudge through and hope there is light at the end of the tunnel. First of all, the website search... where is it? Looking down the middle, it's not there. Looking at the navigation tools on the left, it's not there. AH! There it is, in that tiny font at the bottom of the page. I certainly hope no one was in a big rush.


Alrighty, let's go to the catalog again. The page's design is different from the homepage, but that isn't altogether terrible. There are some navigation buttons, though they are located at the bottom of the page as opposed to those on the main page. The links that are there are at least useful even if the positioning isn't the best.


Let us move on to the databases. The page's design is different from both of the previous pages - something that is starting to become an issue. However, this website design is better. There are navigation buttons and they are towards the top of the page where they are easy to find! Let's click on some of them! The home button takes you home - how novel! What other buttons do we have here? Information & Sciences: Takes you home. Locations: Takes you home. Assistance: Takes you home. News: Surely not... yes, it takes you home. At this point I can not help but to wonder two things. 1. How much harder would it have been to link these directly to pages that actually have that information? 2. What is the point of five buttons which all take you back to the homepage? In fact, this disturbs me so much that it deserves another screen shot.




Click to Enlarge - Source: http://www.usouthal.edu/univlib/other.html

 I admit, this has me riled up - so let us move on to a different portion of the website. Someone help unbury me, I traveled to the 'events schedule.' Not only is the design for this page completely different from all previous pages - making me start to suspect that this website is composed of a merger of newer pages and ancient pages that no one has bothered to update - but there also aren't any navigation buttons! Actually, that's not entirely truthful. There is a home button at the bottom of the page, however, it takes approximately nine good scrolls of the mouse scroll wheel in order to reach the bottom of this over-long page. I hate to be vicious, but I think i'm done with this aspect of the website.


Wealth of Content: D


Let's look at the reference. There is a good quantity of databases and reference tools, and even a useful subject guide, however I must remind you that the database descriptions were scanty and irregular at best. Oh, it has course guides! This is great, in theory. Looking at several of these pages, they seemed to have links to general research tools, often ones that aren't necessarily pertinent to the class.


Moving on, there is no contact information for the reference desk on the main page. Library information is an easy link to find on the homepage (though it is sadly absent from many other pages), however the reference information is again absent. It took me a good couple of minutes and a look into the 'personnel directory' in order to find this information slapped more than halfway down the directory web page. I feel as if a vein ought to be popping out on my brow at this moment. The website seems to have been updated five days ago, not good but certainly not horrible - nothing for me to get excited about either way.


Summary:


I was dissapointed by this website. Opening it up I didn't expect anything spectacular, but it seemed simple and effective. What I found upon digging into the site was a maze of different page designs and inconsistant information seemingly haphazardly slapped into some semblance of a university website. I don't remember the website being this bad when I was an undergraduate, but then, I was probably far too busy trying to figure out where to find information for my papers.


Final Grade: D

The Ann Arbor District Library

I don't want to be a negative nancy and I know that no one wants to read something negative all of the time; therefore, I wanted to start this thing off on a positive note. In 2006, The Ann Arbor District Library received praise from the ALA for their website, so I decided that it would be a good website upon which to compare my own standards. After all, if it's good enough for the ALA then it should certainly be able to impress me!


AADL Website is a Winner


Click to Enlarge - Source: http://www.aadl.org/

 Ann Arbor District Library Website


New User Experience - Grade: A-


First impression - I opened the page looking to do some research and found my gaze drawn immediately to the site logo. Not only that, but right beneath the website is a host of useful navigation links! My eyes drew instantly down to 'Catalog' and stalled just long enough to register 'Reference' before I moved to click on the Catalog link. Admittedly, being very familiar with library websites I am a bit swifter than a freshman researcher would be, but nevertheless, finding the catalog was very easy.

Upon clicking the catalog link, I found myself with instant access to the catalog search as well as a host of more advanced browsing options. I didn't much like that the 'advanced search' link was shunted far to the right side of the page, nor did I care terribly for the orange-brown text, but the page was quite readable and very simple at first approach.



I moved on to research and found myself instantly able to browse by database subject. I didn't like that there was no database search option immediately apparent, nor was their subject listing full of many different subjects. I am a strong believer that reference contact info should be displayed immediately and abundantly on a website and was disappointed that I had to look around on the 'Contact Us' page in order to find it. Additionally, the interlibrary loan information was located under 'Ask a Librarian' which did not seem entirely appropriate. Had I not stumbled across it, I would not have immediately thought to look there for the link.


Although the site does certainly have a few small issues in this area, there is nothing in particular that I would consider terribly serious.


Ease of Navigation - Grade: A


The navigation tool bar was one of the first things that I noticed and remains persistently and effectively at the top throughout my exploration. The site search, located at the top right, was not terribly difficult to find - and the website provides various different languages for easy access. The secondary navigation bar at the left changed to reflect content pertinent to the page that you visited, a delightful aspect that helped to improve navigation. A few quick searches in the site search aided me in finding specific aspects like Interlibrary loan and proved to be effective.


Wealth of Content - Grade: B


Looking into this aspect of the site - the first thing that I noticed was that it was updated yesterday. I went on to look into the research page again. The databases had functional links and detailed descriptions. The presence of a subject-based database list was very nice. I did not like at all that there was no reference contact information provided on the research page, nor that I had to navigate to the 'Ask a Librarian' page in order to find it. This is one issue that many library websites, in my opinion, suffer from. The reference contact information is often buried instead of being presented in a manner that encourages students to contact the reference desk.


Summary:


The website is truly excellent, particularly compared to many of the websites that I have used in the past. There were flaws, at least in my opinion, but none of these were critical enough to warrant severe grade reductions. The single greatest flaw would seem to be the tendency to bury the reference contact information - a personal pet peeve of mine.


Final Grade: A

                   

Hey, it's my hand!

The Grading Method

Alrighty, so i'm certain that this won't make me a whole lot of friends - but for some sites this simply has to be done. However, i'm a fair guy - and as such, I wouldn't want to begin this unless I were going to be absolutely objective about it. Therefore, I will begin by creating and explaining the system that I will go by in order to grade and evaluate each website. I call the system: NEW. This stands for: New user experience, Ease of navigation, and Wealth of content.

Image Source: http://www.semresource.com/sem-resource-proposals.php

New User Experience: This is, in my opinion, one of the absolute most important facets of library web design. Libraries are expected to put up a large quantity of information and resources, however, this must be done in a manner that is quickly understandable and easy to navigate. If a new user is confused upon first laying eyes on your website, they will be discouraged from using it. For this, I will look at each new website in the mindset of a 'new user', evaluating what I first notice, what my first impressions are, the site's taxonomy, and the overall simplicity of the website. Paramount is organization, simplicity, taxonomy, and how easy it is to find what i'm looking for.

Ease of Navigation: This is a pretty standard requirement for all websites and for good reason. If your site is difficult to navigate no one is going to enjoy using it. For this I will evaluate: page loading errors, the presence of navigation and home buttons on each page, the accuracy of page descriptions, readability and placement of menus, the website's flow (should be western, as per our reading), position of search and other navigation tools.

Lastly - Wealth of Content: Libraries are known for having an abundance of content. This is their purpose and yet, is a big part of the problem. We have so much information to give that it can be a huge problem organizing it all. For this I will examine: useful reference materials/tools/information, access to reference, lack of dead links, and date of the last update.

Each website will be graded on an A-D scale: A being Excellent, B being acceptable, C being Poor, and D being Terrible/having critical problems. Each site will receive an average grade after each category receives a grade.
A = 0 problems.
B = 1 problem.
C = 2 problems.
D = 3 or more problems.

For some design tips and information on what sort of things i'll be looking at, see below:
http://websitetips.com/usability/
http://websitetips.com/ia/