ACRL Web Survey

ACRL is redesigning their web site, conforming to the new ALA template. A second call for member opinions is being sought via a web survey:

Dear ACRL Member,

We are redesigning the ACRL web site and need your opinions to inform our work. If you have not yet completed the web survey (available at
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspxsm=CVIZ0TycpRnoWWXCs4M0lw_3d_3d), please take our 10-minute survey by 4:30 p.m. CDT, Friday, January 16, 2009.

We thank you for your time and appreciate your opinion regarding the proposed ACRL web site changes (viewable athttp://acrl.ala.org/staging/).

Jon Stahler, Web Services Manager
Association of College and Research Libraries

New ACRL website

Fresh from my email inbox this morning, a notice asking for input concerning the new ACRL website:

Dear ACRL member,

On Monday, September 22, ALA launched a new version of its Web site (www.ala.org). Since the launch of the new ALA site design, ACRL has been refining a prototype design for its website. ACRL recognizes that users of our site may have information needs that differ from those who visit the main ALA site. After drawing on the experience and knowledge gained during the ALA Web redesign process, we are now surveying ACRL members to determine the best way to serve you.

Please assist us by completing a short survey available at http://tinyurl.com/5wm35c. The survey takes approximately 10-15 minutes.

We appreciate your help as we work to improve the ACRL Web site.

I just finished taking the survey and am happy to report it does not take much longer than the 10 - 15 minutes advertised and provides opportunity to work with the new site template on their staging server. It's very clean and follows the new ALA web site template making it more user friendly working between the two sites.

I am so excited!

This week, barring any unforeseen complications, Ashland University Library and the Instructional Resource Center will both have new web sites! Even better, both are part of the University template and help with the branding and marketing of the sites. After a year of hard work, web committee meetings, and collaboration with the fabulous Ashland University web master who tweaked our template again and again to make it feasible for the library, I can not even begin to describe my enthusiasm for the end products.

Keeping my fingers crossed, actually and metaphorically, for a problem free launch later this week (I still have a couple of pages to finish).

Internet Typology Test

The last two weeks I have been immersed in technology, working with another librarian to investigate providing IM/Chat project for the new library web site. As we wait for the final template to arrive from the University Web Master, she is personalizing the existing template it for library use, this project has taken on a life of its own. We are chatting amongst ourselves (and sometimes with other Library Cloud members), playing to learn, having conference chats, checking out the test widget, and overall simply becoming familiar with the technology before moving on towards such issues as IM/chat hours, availability, policy, and privacy for patrons (a reason we picked Meebo, but that is another post). That said, technology, and how it could be incorporated into the new library web site, has been on my mind and I was interested to learn a new typology quiz from Pew was available.

A post yesterday on Library Garden, Friday Fun: Test Your Technology Type, directs readers to a PEW Internet and American Life Project poll prompting interested browsers to find out "What kind of information technology user are you?" Take the Internet Typology Test to find out:

Where Do You Fit?

Do you cringe when your cell phone rings? Do you suffer from withdrawal when you can't check your Blackberry? Do you rush to post your vacation video to your Web site? The questions below allow you to place yourself in one of the categories in the Pew Internet Project's Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users. To identify the typology group to which you belong, please answer the questions below. When you press the 'Calculate My Results' button, a new page will tell you in which group you fit, along with a description of the general characteristics of that group. - Pew Internet

I was curious to see if my answers to this quiz had varied any from the last time I fell prey to it's siren's call. When? Walt at Random posted May 7, 2007, Lackluster veteran: Bias, much?, discussing the same typology quiz. Checking the comments on his post, I was able to note last year I was an Omnivore.

This year, I am a Connector (my dislike of cell phones an undoubted downfall). Seems I am part of a group that makes up 7% of the population with a median age of 38, have typically been online for 9 years, and is made up of mostly women (55%). Honestly, looking at the descriptions I am more comfortable being a connector than the previously noted omnivore. What are you?

Shameless: New IRC web page

Looking back through blog post history I located three different occasions during October (2006) when I discussed, in some detail, the redesign of the Instructional Resource Center web page. Once design changes and "artistic" layouts were established, decisions regarding retention of different pages and how to present key elements were addressed. I completed the first test pages in January and changing over old pages to new pages began in earnest soon after. So, it is with great joy I announce the frames are gone; the page is done, posted, and best of all it works!

Information is presented in five categories:

• IRC Information - Faculty, GA's, student workers, hours, pricing and both IRC and EDCI 131/504 FAQ's.
• IRC Collection - Information regarding the library catalog, juvenile books, curriculum textbooks, IRC & it's technology, IRC services, and quick copyright resources.
• What's new - Links to the various IRC blogs for the latest information regarding additions to the collection and news. Sidebar widgets detail new books reviewed in the IRC Book Review blog, news from this blog, and a quick catalog search tool.
• Children's Author & Illustrator Pages - The main page presents reference resources, database recommendations, and Internet links for children's authors and illustrators. Additionally, over 75 individual author and illustrator pages are presented.
• IRC Resources - A compilation of various resources available beyond the traditional IRC collection; Internet resources, education & research, course handouts, leveled book kits, and mock Caldecott pages are featured here.

It will come as no surprise that my favorite element of the redesign is the IRC "What's new" page. It incorporates several blog widgets, LibraryThing, a Widgetbox Blidget, and a catalog search widget, as well as provides RSS feeds from Feedburner. Right now I am spending time tweaking things and adding more author and illustrator pages (especially Caldecott & Newbery) to the existing collection. Overall, I am pleased and relieved to be finished!

Tags: Ashland University Library, IRC web page, Web page redesign, Academic library web pages