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Library Web Review Group

Notes of Meeting of May 3, 2005
Davis 1568
1:30-3:30 pm

Present: Christy Branston, Rachel Caldwell, Helena Calogeridis (recorder), John Chan (co-op student), Marian Davies, Sandra Keys, Esther Millar, Bill Oldfield, Dan Sich, Marina Wan (chair)

Regrets: Linda Hastings

1. Welcome to John Chan

M. Wan welcomed John Chan, the new co-op student, who will assist the group with technical support.

2. Notes from April 25, 2005

Approved, with minor corrections.

3. Business Arising

The Site Index page link was added to the left navigation bar. B. Oldfield worked on an experimental page to show how the site index will work.

Due to hardware problems it was not working last week so it will be viewed again.

4. Agenda Review

TRELLIS Quick search ( Dan Sich) will become #6 on today’s agenda.

5. Article on website survey in news@your library (Rachel Caldwell)

The text was approved, with several suggestions for improvement regarding final wording. C. Branston’s extension will be used for contact.

6. TRELLIS Quick search

Dan Sich brought to our attention the TRELLIS search option on UG’s homepage, for which the default is ‘keyword or “phrase”’.  This is not a straight TRELLIS search, but rather one which Nick Dobbing at UG put together.  A script runs in the background which ANDs unquoted terms together, and treated quoted terms as phrases.  Chris Gray created UW’s TRELLIS quick search engine, and Nick Dobbing borrowed from this to create the UG version.  Dan will approach Linda Teather about the possibility of Chris Gray working on this TRELLIS quick search option for our new top-right search engine.  The option could be called TRELLIS catalogue keyword or “phrases”, or TRELLIS keyword or “phrases”, or Catalogue keyword or “phrases”.

7. More on Site map and site index

Nothing more to be added. Discussed above under #3.

8. Final review of left navigation items

Discussion ensued on all three areas, the left navigation bar, the middle text area, and the right menu. Suggestions for changes included:

-the removal of Self-Registration link from the left nav bar and adjusting the wording in the middle

-linking directly to the Combining Keywords search in TRELLIS as a default

-changing Research Databases name to “Journal Articles, etc.”

-revising the text in the middle column for Resources (Action: C. Branston)

-Suggest a Purchase link will move to the right menu, where the name for a specific department/location will be required

- Services and Facilities will become “Services” in the yellow bar (topic title area); text in the middle will be revised and will include links

-About Us will include links to headings

-Help & Instruction will include links to headings

9. Patrons’ opinion on the new website

C. Branston drew attention to the MIT Libraries usability study. She suggested using this approach at UW, with some modifications. The study will be undertaken soon.

10. Around the table

Action: B. Oldfield will check the Research Databases pages and review changes for the next meeting.

Tentatively, June 24 will be the launch of the new home web page.

Next meeting: May 9, 2005, LIB 428


August 11, 2005