Penn libraries offer redesigned Web site

The new homepage is designed to offer students easier access to the library's on-line information. Van Pelt Library's interior is not the only library resource getting a major face-lift this year. After months of work, library system officials are set to officially unveil their latest pet project Monday: a massively redesigned Web page allowing users to easily find the resources they need while clarifying the relationships between various pages. In both appearance and practice, the differences between the old and new sites are striking. Students trying to access an on-line database like the Periodicals Content Index through the old library site, for example, had to access the Databases page and scroll down three full screens before finding the link. Visiting any of the site's other pages, meanwhile, required a return trip to the main library page. On the new site, by contrast, a bar on the main Databases page offers users a choice of how to view the various databases, ranging from an old-fashioned alphabetical listing to specific subsets of business or humanities databases. At the same time, a horizontal bar at the top of each page features graphical links to the site's other pages. "The horizontal bar is a way of providing a subject constant across all these databases," said Jane Bryan, the head reference librarian at Van Pelt. "It allows for movement between sections in both vertical and horizontal directions." Additionally, the new site features a page answering frequently asked questions about the system's 15 libraries, including information on the libraries' policies and collections. The new page is the culmination of months of work by library officials, who first began planning a redesign last April in an effort to make the site easier to use. "We knew we wanted to redesign [the Web page] to improve functionality, navigation and appearance," Bryan said. After finalizing a decision to proceed with a redesign, a team of three Web-savvy library employees began full-scale work on the new site. No part of the redesign was done by an outside firm. Reference Librarian Patricia Lynn, Van Pelt Library Web Manager Mike Simpson and Biomedical Library Educational Coordinator Frank Campbell spearheaded the project, which continued throughout the summer. When designing the new site, the team was determined not to hamper the pages by filling them with unnecessary features, such as an option allowing Telnet users to access a text version of the library's Web page. "In the past we constrained our Web design so that users who weren't using the graphical design could still use it easily, but that was holding us back," Bryan explained. She estimated that less than 1 percent of the site's users are unable to access the graphical version of the page. To accommodate those users, the new site will offer instructions on how to view a text version of the page via Lynx, a Unix-based Web browser accessible through students' Telnet accounts.