Melissa Townsend-Crow
LIBR 230
April 7, 2014
Investigation #2 Evaluation of the website of an Academic
Library:
East Los Angeles College Helen Bailey Miller Memorial Library website (http://www.elac.edu/departments/library/index.asp)
I chose
the East Los Angeles College Library website because I attended ELAC for a few
of my undergraduate years, so I was familiar with the library if not its
website. I wish I had used this resource when I was a student there.
Finding the
information
Contents
The website shows how to
contact a librarian or library staff to get help. There is a phone listing with
numbers for both ELAC campus libraries at which students can reach librarians
and staff during the hours that the libraries are open to ask questions about
circulation and research questions. There is also a 24 hour, seven days a week chat
line that students may use to contact library staff for assistance.
The available services are clearly shown on the
website with links to the catalog, instructions for placing materials on hold
and links to access the databases to which ELAC subscribes. The purpose or
mission statement is not easily found, however, if one simply types “mission
statement” in the library website search box:
Index
The index is displayed on the
library website home page. The entries are not arranged alphabetically, but
arranged so that the links are clearly labelled and the site is easily
navigated. First is the catalog link, followed by the link to the database
index. Links to research guides or LibGuides lead only to “citation help” and
the personal website of the individual who created the citation help web page
and could use some development. There are also links to California State
University-Los Angeles with whom ELAC has an agreement for student access to
the CalState-LA library. There are also
links to WorldCat and the ELAC Campus newspaper archives. There is a link to
the available library resources in downloadable/printable .pdf format as well (http://www.elac.edu/departments/library/doc/handout/LOH12162010AG.pdf).
Site Map
The site map is the entire
library website homepage. Everything is clearly labelled. There were no broken
links. Spelling and punctuation were accurate and correct. Each linked page has
a title and heading and the links lead accurately to the correct page. One
glance at the home page is enough to navigate the entire site.
Search
The links to almost every other
page in the site are on the home page and what isn’t there, can be located
using the search box which is specific to ELAC libraries. “How to check out
books?” leads the searcher to entries such as the library’s circulation policy
and the library catalog.
Currency of Information
The “LibGuide” site was last updated October 2011, however there was no
indication of when the rest of the site may have been updated unless one takes
the ELAC library Twitter account and the posting the most current “Tweets” on
the home page. Also, the Library hours
of operation for the current semester (Spring 2014) are posted at the top of
the home page.
Finding an answer
“Choose a simple fact - can a
user find it?” I chose to look up the birthdate of Edmund Spenser (yes, my
undergraduate degree is in English). Since I am not currently enrolled in at least
one class, I could not access any of the databases at all, however, the lists
of databases are available and they are comprehensive and many of them specific
to subject. I tried to access the biography database.
Authority of information
The outside resources linked to East Los Angeles College libraries are WorldCat
and California State University, as well as Gale, ProQuest, and EBSCO databases
which are very reputable and therefore presumably reliable. Since ELAC has a
transfer agreement with the CalState system, it is appropriate that ELAC
students have access to CalState library resources and the link on the home
page works to provide that access off campus.
Comments page
Each page has a link to leave comments. Each comment link asks for the
e-mail address of the user who is commenting. Questions are re-directed to the
home page link to chat with a reference or circulation librarian or staff
member. Each page has a link for the user to click if they need assistance.
Responsibility for page
Some of the pages had the author’s name and a link to his or her e-mail
address and, when applicable, their personal page within the website. On that
personal webpage is located the phone number and extension, department, and
e-mail address of the individual. At the
bottom of each page of the website (except those of the databases and other
external pages linked to the site) is the following:
Understanding
the information
Organisation
of the site
The headings are user friendly in that they describe accurately and briefly what
information follows on the page. They are appropriate for non-library saavy
users in that they are written in plain language. They do move from general to
specific and the overall structure of the site makes it user-friendly for the
novice, but it is arranged intuitively for the more experienced user as well;
those who know what they are seeking can be as specific or as general as
necessary and the information is readily accessible.
The links to each page clearly
state what information will be provided when the link is clicked. Each page
provides an overview of the information and if more details or something more
is required or desired, there are links to specific items which narrow the
general topic are provided – it’s almost like a treasure hunt, following the
links like clues to the trove of information. The paragraph styles are
appropriate to the types of information being provided by the topic of the page
within the overall website.
Style and Text
The text of the site and each
individual page visited by the user uses appropriate tenses and active voice. The
site uses the passive voice very little. The reading level of the text at which
the information is provided is appropriate and would be clearly understandable
to a high school student, yet it is not insulting in its simplicity. Academic
standards of language are maintained as appropriate for a college library
system. This user noted no one sentence
paragraphs on any of the pages visited. As for scanability, the headings and
font styles are designed so that the topics stand out at a glance.
Terminology
There are few terms which this
reader would note as “new,” however links are highlighted and some text follows or precede
the links to briefly explain in plain language what information the linked page
will present. Terms are consistent throughout the website and if the user finds
these terms unfamiliar, the context makes clear the definition. With few
exceptions, abbreviations follow spelled out words. For example “DB” for
Database:
While this experienced user presumed that “DB” stands
for “database,” it may be presumed that a new user might be less certain.
Supporting user tasks
Interactive
tasks
The forms provided for feedback
for the site or for requests for assistance with circulation or research are
merely fill in forms, most of them one page or less in length, and they are
self-explanatory. The shortest fill-in forms are those used to schedule a
library workshop in which navigating the website is explained thoroughly. The more confusing fill in forms are those
used to search commercial databases, but those are external pages/forms and
assistance with such research is available either in person during the
libraries’ hours of operation or by chat “24/7.”
User questions
Frequently Asked Questions are included
on a separate page of the website, though one has to search through many of the
other pages to find a link. Links to Help
screens usually lead to the 24/7 chat screen. However, there is a tutorial on
the use of the library website (http://www.elac.edu/departments/library/elaclib/)
Presenting the
information
Display and
Download Speed (Choose 3 pages at random)
The home page and the other
pages linked to the website open immediately. Even the external pages linked to
the website open within 1-2 seconds of clicking the link. Downloadable pages,
which are almost all in .pdf format may take longer, but the longest download
took less than 20 twenty seconds.
A sampling of the graphics
showed that they ranged in size from 12kb to 46kb, but no page this user
visited had more than three graphics.
The pages display well at different resolutions,
though 600x 800 flickers and eventually gets cut off. This user opened the
library website in three different browsers (Mozilla Firefox 28.0, Internet
Explorer 11.0 through America Online 9.7, and Google Chrome version 34.0.1847.116 m) and all
three browsers displayed the pages identically. All the pages loaded at the
same speed in each browser. The site does not use frames.
Disability Access
According to the website page dedicated to Library Policy
on ADA compliance,
“The library makes every effort to maintain the library
website (http://library.elac.edu) and
make it accessible to students with disabilities in compliance with Section 508
of the Rehabilitation Act.”
This user noted the following
checklist points on the website:
Does the page provide a text
equivalent for every non-text element? -- No
Is
information conveyed with colour also available without colour? -- No
Are
documents organised so they may be read without style sheets? – Yes
However, when I went into my computer’s Ease of
Access settings and set them for various impairments which might affect
accessibility to this website, the appearance changed so that a visually
impaired person would have little trouble navigating the site and furthermore,
the Narrator feature on this user’s computer read every word aloud and signaled
a tone to click on the mouse and open links regardless of cursor placement.
These features lead this user to believe that the website is adaptable for
disabled users to gain access to the information on the site.
Links
Each page that this user
visited has at least one link. All of the links opened the expected pages as
indicated by the labels on each link. This user found no broken links on the
website.
Navigation
The website and most of
the pages within it are easily navigable, however, a few are difficult, but
only because this user didn’t have the credentials to access them (valid
account for registered/enrolled students).
Each page scrolls with either mouse or arrow keys and each page has a
link to take the user back to the home page. The browsers’ back arrows also
work to navigate to previous pages. Most of the pages linked to the website can
also be reached by the site toolbar and dropdown menus:
HTML Format (Choose one page at random)
This user chose the Library Workshop page: (http://researchguides.elac.edu/libraryworkshops)
and, by saving the page and opening it in notepad, found that it is written in
standard html code. It appears to be error free as the web page displays
properly. This user is not familiar enough with html and metadata to determine
more than that, however, the use of the word “meta” used repeated throughout
the html document leads one to believe that metadata is, indeed used here.
Example:
<!DOCTYPE
html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<!--AUTO GENERATED META TAGS-->
<meta
http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=utf-8" />
<meta name="robots"
content="noarchive" />
<meta name="description" content="Get workshop descriptions,
schedules, student learning outcomes, and assessment methods here." />
<meta name="keywords"
content="amy guy, citing sources, erika montenegro, faculty, instruction,
library, library workshops, research skills Home Library Workshops ELAC
Libraries" />
Text Format
The text format is slightly
inconsistent depending on which page in the site one visits, but this user did
not find it distracting. On the contrary, font sizes varied appropriately
between titles, headers, and text and font colors and styles varied in an
attractive manner appropriate to the information being presented. There were no
tables or figures and the information was presented in a logical, clear manner.
Major topics had their own pages within the site.
Mechanics (Choose 5 pages at random)
Whoever wrote the text had a more
than adequate grasp of grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and structure. Each of the
five pages (home page, my account, circulation policy, holds policy and
procedures, FAQs) were well-written, clearly outlined the topic, and offered
resources if the user required further assistance or additional information.
The only error I noted is a common one:
“FAQ’s” since there is no apostrophe in plurals. It’s a small thing, but
it should be fixed.
Printing?
“Do all the text and graphics print on A4 paper?” The
text and graphics print according to the specifications one’s printer is set up
to print it. This user was able to save
several of the webpages from this site to .pdf format and set the printer to
adjust the document to print according to the selected paper size.
Conclusion
With a few exceptions, this
user found the East Los Angeles College Library website very navigable. I think
that even a novice user could find whatever information to which he or she was
allowed access (based on student status) quickly and easily. Furthermore, even
if difficulties arose, there are links leading to assistance on every page of
the site. This library website is an effective tool in the library’s mission to
provide curricular support to students and faculty.
Reference
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Score:
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10 / 10
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Feedback Date:
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Apr 16, 2014 1:00 PM
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Dropbox Feedback:
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Nice
critique of the East Los Angeles College library website, Melissa. Good
suggestions for improvement, too, esp about the FAQs.
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