Minutes of the Web Advisory Committee

Wednesday, February 1, 2012 from 2:30-4:00 p.m.

Knowledge Innovation Technology Lab (KITL), 3rd Floor OISE

Present: Monique Flaccavento (chair), Patricia Bellamy (Robarts), Maria Buda (Dentistry), Sarah Forbes (UTSC), Pam King (UTM), Lari Langford (Robarts), Marc Lalonde (ITS), Judith Logan (Robarts), Kate MacDonald (Trinity), James Mason (Music), Jen Robertson (Robarts), Michelle Spence (Engineering & Computer Science), Susanne Tabur (Gerstein), Rita Vine (Gerstein), Margaret Wall (Robarts)

Regrets: Heather Cunningham (Gerstein), Nalini Singh (iSchool)

1. Selection of minute taker: Patricia Bellamy

2. Minutes of December 7, 2011 meeting: approved

3. Business arising from the minutes

a. Robarts Library webpages: Marc has redirected the main Robarts’ links for people who had bookmarkedthe old home page of Robarts Library. A photograph of Robarts (and all other libraries) will be added in the future.

4. Updates from Marc Lalonde

a. Research guides: Marc will ensure YaCy is indexing research guides.

b. Moving library pages to Drupal

Q: What is the timeline for other libraries such as Dentistry, Engineering, OISE, UTSC moving to Drupal?
A: Marc will ask Graham Stewart to set up shell accounts. Marc will then offer a full-day workshop for staff at these locations set up their own site. Marc will send out several possible dates.

5. Web Analytics Group

Jen Robertson showed the committee a spreadsheet analyzing the use of the top 100 UTL pages from Sept. 1 to Dec. 31, 2011. The report contained a variety of statistics (Visits, New Visits, Unique Visitors, Unique Pageviews, Pageviews, Entrances, Exit, Bounces, Avg. Time on Page), from highest to lowest visited pages. The following pages were at the top of the list:

  • hours
  • articles
  • popular databases
  • e-resources, etc.
  • Subjects A-Z

The Web Analytics Group also looked at the average time spent per page, pages with low use, and at the Students drop down menu, both levels 1 and 2 with the goal of identify the best place to put these items.

6. Web Style Guide “Top 5” (or 10) tips

  • Keep it short
  • Do not use “click here,” reword
  • Capitalize correctly
  • Avoid clichés
  • Use sentence case for headings
  • Spell out University of Toronto Libraries (UTL) the first time, then UTL for the rest of the page
  • Spell days and months in full
  • Use dashes, not brackets, for telephone numbers
  • Prefer bulleted lists wherever possible

7. ASK widget and/or Library FAQ widget

Q: Now that we have our own Library FAQ, should that widget be on every page?

A: To keep students within the UTL web site, we decided Need help?should be placed on every page. This will lead the user to the Library FAQ knowledge base. If the question is not answered in Library FAQ, you will get the Askwidget. Marc and Gordon Belray will design something for us to look at next meeting. Marc will also look at alternative wording to Library FAQ used at other institutions.

8. FAQ pages—are they still necessary?

All FAQs, including the following pages,will be moved to the Library FAQs:

The loan services questions will be tagged for ease of updating. If the answer lives on a web page, point to the web page rather than repeat the information. Jen will report to Susanne how many times these FAQs have been searched. Susanne will revise these FAQs and update us at the next meeting. Marc will ensure YaCy indexes the FAQs.

9. Help drop-down menu: Can the following pages be combined?

We agreed that these pages should be combined. Marc and Gordon Belray will design a prototype.

Q: Can we combine library workshops and tours with Contact us? Do workshops and tours even belong here?

A: Problematic as the current workshop list reflects only classes that use the central library registration system.

We will postpone a decision until Rita has completed her work on the Faculty / Supporting teaching page. Can we think of a new name for Library FAQ?

10. Review of Access and Information pages

Judith distributed alternative wording and layout for the following web page:

Committee members made the followingsuggestions:

a) Add Robarts Library, 1st floor at the end of the sentence, “Teaching hospital fellows may obtain access to University of Toronto Libraries at the Reader Registration desk.”

b) Even though the process is different, use the same sentence construction for the two user types:

  • Postdoctoral fellows may access University of Toronto Libraries…
  • Teaching hospital fellows may access University of Toronto Libraries…

c) Remove the capitalization behind the eligible hospitals,as they are not mentioned further down the page.

Please let Monique know which pages still need to be updated. The next areas to tackle are low use pages and drop down menus. Come to the next meeting with your suggestions for About Us.

11. Other business

Andrew McAllorum had difficulty locating Local digital special collectionsunderResearch / Special Collections. He is coming to the next meeting to suggest an alternative.

Focus on Research has now been added to Faculty / Supporting research / Tools for research

Drop down menus do not always reflect the actual content on the subsequent pages, for example compare the Faculty drop down list to what is on the next page.

Next meeting: March 7, 2012, 2:30-4:00 p.m. in the KITL, 3rd floor, OISE.

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