Information Scotland The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland ISSN 1743-5471 Issue contents | Journal contents | About the online edition of the journal February 2008 Volume 6(1)

Digital Environment

Enhancing the user experience

Eileen Connolly explains how a new micro-site has been established at Glasgow Metropolitan College to accommodate use of the latest technologies and promote all of the college’s library resources.

Glasgow Metropolitan College is the city’s biggest further education college. With approximately 5,500 FTE students in four academic schools, the college make-up is extremely diverse. Students are spread across two main campuses and three annexes, and may attend in a variety of ways, including full-time, part-time, evenings and weekends.

The college library service consists of two libraries in the main campuses which hold collections related to the subjects taught there. There is also a large collection of electronic resources, usage of which staff wish to increase.

In October 2006, the college website had recently been redesigned and a new company appointed to provide hosting and content management. At that point, the library service had been hosting its own web pages for a number of years, and had been among the first to make use of Web 2.0 technologies, including blogs and podcasts. There was a very large amount of content which had to be moved to the new templates and content management system (CMS) in a short space of time. However, the existing templates within the new CMS were not flexible enough to accommodate many of the new technologies that the college wanted to employ. These circumstances combined meant that the resulting library web pages were not user-friendly. They were difficult to find and navigate, with electronic resources deeply buried.

In March 2007 a process of redesigning the library templates within the CMS and the web pages began. It was agreed that the library needed to have its own micro-site, related to but distinct from the main college web pages.
The new micro-site aims to be:

• Accessible


• Easy to navigate


• Searchable


• Strongly branded


• Innovative


• Interactive


• Dynamic

It is organised around the four schools, with each school having its own gateway. As the college has a large number of ESOL students, the subject has been treated as a school. Within each gateway, users can find links to relevant forms and guides, many of which are available in up to 12 languages; links to subject guides written by library staff, and to recommended electronic resources.

Putting the electronic resources in context helps students to see the relevance to their course. Although users are encouraged to sign up for an Athens password for off-campus access, the majority of resources are directly accessible via IP from the college campus. Passwords are often seen as a barrier to the use of electronic resources, so it is hoped that usage will increase by allowing seamless linking from the gateway pages.

Each school page also contains its own Google custom search. Google custom searches allow library staff to promote quality websites and filter out others. For example, Wikipedia has been added to the list of excluded sites in all of the custom searches to try to discourage students from using it as a primary source. Users of these custom searches can suggest sites to be added or excluded, allowing them to help create searches which are really useful to them. The searches do use Google to search the web, but promote the chosen sites. Library staff regularly update the contents of the custom searches with quality websites which they have been evaluated and approved.

The naming of the custom searches was difficult, but it was eventually decided that the generic ‘Web Search’ should be used. It was felt that if students do not have to leave the site to search the web, it may encourage them to remain within the library micro-site rather than going straight to Google. They do not necessarily realise that the searches have been customised by library staff.

Searches have also been added for the library pages only, and for library electronic resources only. To make the search as easy and intuitive as possible, the schools model has been carried through to the electronic resources search. Users can filter their search by school, by subject (course), or by a combination of both. This will result in an alphabetical list of resources relevant to their search. If more information about the resource is needed, they can simply hover over its name to get a pop-up description of it.

The micro-site is strongly branded in distinct colours to give a visual clue that users are not within the main college website, and the improved navigation includes breadcrumb trails which lead students back to the main Glasgow Metropolitan College website. The pages as a whole sit within the college’s main branding and navigation, allowing users to move easily to other sections of the college website.

The library service has always been innovative in its use of technology, and the new pages continue this tradition. Podcasts are available on the site, and recently purchased equipment means that these can be updated and added to regularly. An RSS feed from the library service blog keeps users informed of events and changes, and allows them to leave comments on the service. Subject-specific RSS feeds have been developed and will be added in the near future.
Visual content has been added where possible.

Short flash demonstrations created using Wink allow users to find out how to sign up for and use Athens, and how to renew their library books online, and virtual tours have been created, giving users the chance to look around the libraries before visiting. The pages include ‘feature panels’ which can be used to add photographs, links or text.

In order to keep the site looking fresh and interesting, the content on the home page changes dynamically. Each time a user opens the page, the logo and description of any one of up to five electronic resources will appear, helping to raise awareness of them. Library staff are able to easily change which resources will display, allowing particular ones to be promoted when necessary. The RSS news feed means that there will be regular new content as staff update the blog with information on new stock and events.

We are currently looking at a range of new projects, including collaborative work with other colleges, and the use of animation. The range of Web 2.0 technologies available means there are new possibilities emerging constantly and we are keeping a close watch for anything we can use to enhance the user experience.

Eileen Connolly is Digital Librarian, Glasgow Metropolitan College.

Information Scotland Vol. 6(1) February 2008

Information Scotland is delivered online by the SAPIENS electronic publishing service based at the Centre for Digital Library Research. SLAINTE (Scottish libraries across the Internet) offers further information about librarianship and information management in Scotland.