Redesigning a library web site (@#$%)

So we, at UC Library, have taken on the task of redesigning our web site. Currently, we have a team of five laboring away every Thursday from 9:30 til whenever figuring out the best way to provide a usable web presense for the library. We are absolutely determined to have it up live by the start of the fall semester.

Ample discussion has been given to the subject of Information Architecture (IA), and I can tell you that we have cobbled out a great structure with consistent taxonomy. Overall I am proud of what we have accomplished thus far.

Part of this project has been the sifting through of many academic library web sites for benching marking purposes. One issue we discovered was the inconsistency between a library's home page and its secondary pages. Many times really well designed library home pages are supported by a whole bunch of poorly designed secondary pages.

Columbia University has a home page for its libraries which our team took as an inspiration for our library. It looks great, well organized and effective for its purpose. If you click on these links provided on the home page you may find yourself on a page that isn't well designed. Like this one. Can you say scroll city?

The lesson here is to not solely focus on the design of the home page and leave the rest to those responsible for departmental content. It clearly leads to problems. We have taken this lesson to heart in the re-design commitee, at present we are in the process of editing requests forms. Yee Haw!