Minutes of the Meeting of June 9, 2010
2 - 3:30 pm, Porter 428
Present: Allan Bell (Chair), Nancy Collins, Marian Davies, Chris Gray, Adrian Kemp, Esther Millar (Recorder),
Doug Morton, Charles Woods
Regrets: Annie Bélanger, Tim Ireland
- Approval of WebOps Minutes of May 12 – Approved with minor changes
- Business Arising
4. LibGuides and Direct Links - Esther uploaded the instructions for authors into LibGuides
- Agenda Review
Add items: Visual Design of Left-hand Menu and Redesign - Information Architecture of Library Web Site
- LinkChecking on Webguides
Link-checking against many URLs can trigger problems with both TRELLIS WebVoyage and vendor-sites. Charles wondered whether LibGuides offered any filtering mechanisms to prevent TRELLIS URL's from being checked. Esther noted that this kind of filtering does not exist within LibGuides. At this point link checking has not become a problem, but Charles will monitor it and inform us if it does.
- Location of Resource Notes
Doug noted that userid/password information or special instructions for accessing specific resources are currently made accessible from several different systems. The group agreed that all resource instructions should be located on the library machine.
ACTION: Doug will compile
a comprehensive list of all locations where this information is now made available and outline a plan on how to proceed. (He will also consult with Jo and Debbie.)
- bX Recommender Service (ExLibris)
This service harvests SFX logs from thousands of libraries around the world. Then based on a user's search it recommends other articles that may be of interest. Resources are only shown if there are suggestions.
Doug gave the group a demo of the product. OCUL has secured a 60-day trial of the service that will end on July 30.
ACTIONS: Doug will send an email to library staff notifying them of the trial and asking for feedback. This will help determine whether to purchase or not.
Nancy will look at ways to notify faculty and grad students about the trial.
Charles will send the manual to Allan, Chris, Doug, & Adrian to
look at possibilities for customization.
Doug & Chris will look at ways to put a note near the top of the page alerting users to check the bottom of the page for other recommended articles.
- Visual Design of Left-hand Menu
With the expansion of the Resources for Research menu, Chris suggested an alternate design to provide a clearer break between the sub-menu items.
ACTION: Chris will contact Janet Wason and Annie to see if his suggested design poses any accessibility issues. If it passes, he will then implement his design on the test site. (www.libtest.uwaterloo.ca)
- Redesign - Information Architecture of Library Web Site
We have an enormous task ahead of us in determining the most useful and appropriate information architecture for our redesigned web site. To start the process, a few suggestions were made and tasks were assigned as follows:
ACTIONS: Marian will consult with several librarians about top user tasks.
Chris will look at the steps involved in writing a research paper to help switch our focus to user needs and user tasks.
Marian & Charles will categorize top landing and exiting pages and scope out what categories of use Google Analytics can show us.
- Around the Table
Charles noted browser usage statistics (Firefox 50%; IE 38%).
Charles will forward a link to an article showing how Google makes money -
BP buys search term "oil spill" from Google.
Conference Proceedings
Esther noted that Conference Proceedings has been added to the sub-menu items under Resources for Research (under the primary navigation). A proposal for this addition came from Laura Howell on behalf of
Kathy MacDonald, Kristen Jensen and herself. After discussion by email, WebOps decided to add the item as proposed.
- Next Meeting
Next Meeting: June 23, Davis Conference Room, 2-3:30 pm. Recorder: Doug.
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June 17, 2010
