Notes of Meeting of March 8, 2005
Davis Library Conference Room
1:30pm to 3:00pm
Attendance: Christy Branston, Rachel Caldwell, Helena Calogeridis, Marian Davies, Sandra Keys, Esther Millar, Dan Sich, Marina Wan
Regrets: Linda Hastings, Bill Oldfield
Notes From Last Meeting
- Two attendance items are being corrected for the notes from the February 22 and February 28 meetings.
Business Arising
- Christy is currently completing the ethics form on behalf of the group (re: survey). She will (tentatively) send a copy of the completed ethics form to the group by Wednesday, March 9 for approval before submitting it to the University.
- Affan has been hired on a 24 hour contract with the Library (approx. 5 hours a week for the next 5 weeks). He will be helping us prepare for the homepage conversion.
- Esther and Marina are interviewing UW students for the co-op position tomorrow. The co-op student will be assisting with various ISR web applications, as well as with the new home page over the spring/summer term.
Agenda Review
- Item added to today's (March 8) agenda deals with the new description for the Research Databases button.
Research Databases Button w/Description
- From the original selection of descriptions for the Research Databases button, most members in the Home Page Review group liked #2. However, the wording for the description was too long/too many characters for the button. It was agreed that we do not include the word "citations" in the description.
- The group agreed on the Research Databases button to contain the following description: "find articles, etc." This brief, but direct description should encompass what Research Databases are useful for.
Mission Statement
- Helena emailed the group with examples of other university library mission statements. Marina liked the format of the example provided by Wingate University's library. Sandra liked the same example because of its wording.
- Linda Hastings also submitted a draft of a mission statement for our group. This mission statement was revised by the group during the meeting.
- The mission statement for the Library Web Home Page Review group will be: The University of Waterloo Library web site supports the mission of the Library by facilitating access to the Library's resources and services.
Home Page Navigation Scheme/Card Sorting Activity
- After conducting the Card Sorting Activity within each of the mini-groups, each group informally presented their home page navigation scheme during the meeting. (See handouts/Dan's email attachment)
It was agreed that:
- There should be an Ask a Librarian button or link located at the bottom of the left (main) navigation menu.
- The Connect From Home link should be placed before the Research Databases link in the left (main) navigation menu.
- Research Starting Points (Subject Guides) link should be in the left (main) navigation menu.
- There should be a link at the top of the left (main) navigation menu for the library's catalogue.
- The Help & Instruction link should be in the left (main) navigation menu.
- The About Us (About the Library) link should be in the right navigation.
- It is undecided if the Patron Services/Privileges link should go in the left or the right navigation menu.
- There should remain to be a quick search field for TRELLIS in the central area of the home page.
Next Steps
- We will continue examining the potential navigation scheme for the new home page. Items that need to be covered include "other resources" and services (i.e., books, journal articles, borrowing, contact us, etc).
- The names of the current home page categories/links need to be discussed.
- Marina mentioned that we need to consider the home page's navigation by adopting different personas.
Next Meeting/Around the Table
- The next meeting will be on Monday, March 14, 2005 in Porter 428 from 1:30pm to 3:00pm.
- Esther will not be able to attend the Home Page Review meeting on Monday, March 14, 2005.
- Dan and Marian will not be able to attend the (tentative) Home Page Review meeting on Monday, March 21, 2005.
August 11, 2005
