User-friendly Library Web page unveiled

In an effort to increase ease of use, the Penn Library system recently launched its new Web site. The site, which debuted on Monday, features many developments that will make finding information easier and faster, according to library staff. "The new site really tries to bring it all together and inform" users as to what information is available to them, said Sandra Kerbel, director of Library Public Services. The new main page, while maintaining the same basic visual style as the old page, now presents users with much more information. A new "mouse-over" feature brings up explanations of the general categories when a user scrolls the mouse over the link. Features like the mouse-over give "users more explanations on topics that might otherwise be unclear," Kerbel said. She added that giving users "a better sense" of the information presented was one of the main goals of the new site. Another objective was to make it easier for users to find the details they need while doing research. To achieve that goal, a new Quick Search feature has been added. Additionally, the same information has been placed in multiple categories across the site. "We put a lot of redundancies into the system, which makes it easier for people to find the information they are looking for in a variety of ways," Kerbel said. The new site has been under development for over a year. During that time, usability studies were conducted to discover which changes would be most useful. "We knew that we needed to rethink the site once we realized that there was trouble figuring out how to organize information," Kerbel said. While "the new site hasn't been up long enough to compare usage in a meaningful way" according to Joseph Zucca -- who coordinates assessment, planning and publications for the library system -- he hopes that the new site will see more use than the old one. During Fiscal Year 2002, the Penn Library Web, which includes the Library Web site, online catalog pages and the Blackboard courseweb server, saw over 40 million hits. As the library tries to tweak the new system to maximize its effectiveness, the page has had shutdowns in recent days. However, this has not been much of a problem for students. "I didn't have a problem" with the page going down, College freshman Allison Fox said, "but the librarian said that it had just been shutting down periodically during the day." Fox, who used the site yesterday while doing research for a sociology project, said it was "pretty straightforward and easy" to find information. "It seemed like a pretty clear setup," she said. College senior Sheryl Kass said that it was "easier to find information" with the new page. As a psychology major, Kass found that "a lot of the e-journals were hard to get to" on the old page. "I had to go through a lot of different links," Kass said. "But yesterday [on the new page] it seemed a lot easier." Kass had not encountered any problems with the Web site being down.