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Library Web Review Group

Notes for January 18, 2006 Meeting

Porter 428
1:00 pm – 2:45 pm

Attendance: Christy Branston, Rachel Caldwell, Marian Davies, Sandra Keys, Esther Millar (Recorder), Dan Sich,  Marina Wan (chair)

Regrets: Helena Calogeridis, Linda Hastings, Bill Oldfield

  1. Minutes of Meeting, December 21, 2005
    Accepted with minor corrections.

  2. Business Arising
    #8. Christy noted that the results of the UW webpage usability study will not be available until March.

  3. Agenda Review
    Add Online Tutorials as agenda item #7.

  4. Library Staff Home Page Text Revision
    Rachel presented the text she and Sandra had prepared. She will make the changes suggested and distribute it to the group again.

    When complete, Marina will ask WebOps for their comments, and will notify Susan Routliffe when approved.
    ACTION: Marina

  5. Ideas from Session "Communicating on the Web"
    We reviewed ideas prepared by the ad hoc group (Marina, Helena, Esther):
    • Increase the visibility of the right navigation bar by using organizational and/or visual elements. This can easily be done via the css files. Helena is checking other web sites for ideas.
    • Journal Articles, etc. heading. We recommend changing all instances to Research Databases (Journal Articles, etc.).
      ACTION: Esther will implement.
      While investigating this issue Dan pointed out that the wording of the topictitle varies depending on whether you are coming from an alphabetical search versus a subject search. We'll ask Bill to look into this on his return.
    • The use of Get it! @ Waterloo on the top level Journal Articles, etc. page can be misleading. We are considering its removal from this page, but will first review statistics on the use of the button.
      ACTION: Marina will ask Charles for usage stats for the page: www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/sfx/sfx_form.html and if possible, statistics on how users navigated to the form
    • Consider entering TRELLIS as the first item under Resources for Research as well as leaving it in its current position. The group decided not to make any changes.
    • Consider renaming "Services" in the left navigation to clarify what is collected under that section. The ad hoc group will continue to look at this item, perhaps consider doing usability testing in the future.
    • A new idea was raised to produce a jargon page that could fit under the Help & Instruction category.
      ACTION: Sandra volunteered to work at this.

      The ad hoc group will continue their deliberations and will look at survey results as well.

  6. Constructing Contribute Friendly URLs for Licensed Resources
    Chris Gray has been developing a script to produce Contribute friendly URLs for licensed resources that will be usable both on or off campus. Several alternatives are being evaluated. See: http://testtube.uwaterloo.ca/cpgray/makelink.cfm
    Final decision has not yet been made.

  7. Online Tutorials
    Jackie Stapleton would like the ISR co-op student to update the CISTI Tutorial. (http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/user_ed/cistitutorial/). It has not yet been updated to meet with the CLF look and standards.

    In discussing the standards that should be followed for Online Tutorials, the question also arose about the nature of Online Tutorials located on the Online Tutorials page. Are PowerPoint presentations online tutorials? Can Online Tutorials be produced as stand-alone documents that do not need to follow the CLF standards? It was suggested that LINC should be involved in these discussions.
    ACTION: Esther will discuss with Helena (in her role as chair of Library Instruction).

  8. Around the Table (via e-mail)
    Christy is going to prepare a report for the Fall web survey and will distribute both the Spring and Fall reports together for LibWebReview and WebOps to review. She will also be sending the reports and data to CNAC to keep. We will need to decide if we want to link to the reports from our site as well.

    WebOps members have decided to stop reviewing LibWebReview minutes in their meetings. Likewise, Marina will stop listing WebOps minutes on our agenda. Please review WebOps minutes periodically and she will also try to bring to our attention issues or new developments discussed in WebOps.

Next Meeting: February 1, 2006


February 20, 2006