Feb. 28th meeting

On Feb. 28th at 11:30am there was a ULMLWPC meeting, and it ended at 12:31pm.

In attendance were:
KC
ML
MMag
MW
KN

-- The "presentations" page was discussed. (More on this later)
-- no one likes "under construction" messages. The web is dynamic and it is meant to always be changing
-- Mike knows that the catalog is clicked on 10 times more often than any other link on the page [that is good]
-- Of the submitted page examples viewed, KC's was the most liked
-- We seem to favor having links arranged under named headings
-- We seem to favor small tables that don't require much scrolling
-- we will probably not have out own statement on privacy
-- When we find lost student ID cards, we are to take them to the SACS office, and we should not contact the card holder
-- There is no requirement to put up a library policy link
-- Since all of the databases would no longer appear on their own, then we will need new pages with DBs arranged in various ways (name, subjects, etc.) We could link to LOUIS' DB page, but maybe not.
-- things like drop-down menus and links such as "and more" that hide content from view are not favored

At the next meeting, we need to:
-- decide what main categories there will be, how many, and what they should be called (for better patron understanding)

Also:
-- Americans do not get enough protein
-- beans are good for you

And I apologize for my rude comment concerning customer service and... I reckon I can explain this more if you ask me in person :-)

Rob Glaze's follow-up

Rob Glaze has provided us with some useful ULM-related links:

Following are some links that may be helpful:

web policies

http://www.ulm.edu/universityrelations/webdev.html

logo use

http://www.ulm.edu/universityrelations/logos/logos.html

university relations home page, many other policies and related info,
including who you may need to direct specific questions to.

http://www.ulm.edu/universityrelations/

Also, related to some of the discussion, there is a pdf version of a "office" phone directory that may be helpful from time to time. This directory is updated several times a year by the computing center.

http://www.ulm.edu/phone/

Feb.21 Meeting Minutes

A meeting of the ULM Library Web Pages Committee was held at 11:30am today and adjourned at 12:30pm.

In attendance were:
DW
KC
CH
ML
MMag
MW
KN
And our guest: Rob Glaze, ULM's Webmaster.

Much was learned today:

-- Academic units are responsible for their own web pages
-- Dr. Stephen Richters, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, has authority over us
-- Standards seem to be fairly flexible in terms of design as long as they aren't rediculous
-- no athletic logos
-- no ads or promotions
-- using regular html is fine
-- we of course cannot control database interfaces
-- Colors display differently on different monitors
-- ML and CC asked about accessibility for the disabled and whether there's anything that can be used to test it. The university doesn't have anything that does that.
-- There should be alternate, less media-intensive ways to access certain
-- ULM's athletics and residence life sites look so different because they are run by commercial entities
-- The Opera browser can be used to test compatibility
-- mobile computing is something to think about, but is not an issue right now
-- Web based forms need to be approved by the computer center
-- The main concern with web based forms is security: could the information being collected be harmful?
-- For SACS all university policies are being placed in one centralized database
[ Just for you all to know, our policies are here ]
-- Fundraising efforts often need approval of the Foundation Office
-- rumor has it that the Friends of the Library will be more active in the near future

By the way, I forgot to mention:

-- I tried making a print .pdf version of the map, but it came out looking like a mess because I tried to fit it all on one page. The print maps we have now have errors on them, so look out for those.
-- Anonymous commenting allowed on blog, but is still moderated

Rough idea for homepage

Ok, I've got a rough draft of my ideas for the homepage.
http://www.ulm.edu/~kcook/ULM-library-testpage.pdf

Note: I am all in favor of having a pretty photo of the library in the lower left quadrant, rotating photos in the "news and announcements" area, larger icons, maybe a few more icons (like the RSS for the blog) etc.

But, though I like KN's photo banner, I would rather opt for putting the catalog search box right on the homepage, so used the ULM standard-ish banner which is a bit smaller, and leaves more real estate free.

Also, I am not strongly attached to having so much text on the page -- but I was trying to see what would fit (mostly seen without scrolling) and maybe still leave enough white space.

[I've added an image version. Hope you don't mind. --Karen N. ]

A few more experiments...

I've also changed my own home page. I'm acutally pretty happy with it, especially the background with diagonal lines.

So I got curious messed around with the presentations page some more just to see what happens when I add a repeating maroon background with diagonal lines:
http://ulm.edu/%7Eniemla/gggg/testmaroon.html
I tried it in gold, but the effect was very unpleasant. There's also a image on there made to look like it's protruding into the background-- I've never tried that before.

I also found a page on a LIS wiki, libsuccess.org, that has a lot of useful links about how to make web pages and many, many links to library websites both good and bad.

My Sample Page

Here is a link to my version of how I'd like the mainpage to look (roughly speaking). It's a PowerPoint slide; I used Fireshot (thanks for posting about that, Karen N!) to do a rough capture and then manipulated it in PP. I figure this is a quick and dirty way to approximate how I think our page ought to look.

http://www.ulm.edu/~lowe/samplepptpage.ppt

Of course, it's not carved in stone, but it's how I envision the website looking. In other words: my two cents.

[Karen N.: Here's an image of the same (I hope you don't mind that I didn't ask first) :-/ ]

Upcoming presentation page?

Just so it doesn't surprise everyone on Thursday, here's one of the things I've been working on:

http://ulm.edu/%7Eniemla/gggg/insdemo.html
(like everything I make, this looks best in Firefox until I fix it for IE)

It's a collection page for all the presentations we have that people can use. I wasn't sure what presentations were appropriate and which weren't. For instance, this one that I did for the CBA very recently has almost no words in it at all because I lectured through the whole thing. I do most of my presenting this way, because my favorite professors were all lecturers. The presentation file isn't very useful on its own.

It's not official at all, so if there's anything missing from it or things that should not be on it, it can be fixed. The image shouldn't be any trouble; I've made ten versions of it, and I'll make twenty more if no one likes this one.

There is no top banner because I think I know of a way to make a cleaner version of the one I've already made.

Going to the top

I've been having trouble getting images and table to go to the very top edge of my documents. Just today I found out that to do that you just put "TOPMARGIN=0" in the body tag.

... could this have been any more obvious? >_< So now I do not have that problem any more.