Back to web site grindstone

The mark of a successful Halloween is getting through the day without anyone mentioning your costume, especially if you are not wearing one. Well, that and getting some good candy. I have to report for the first time since I started working in an academic library students wore costumes to class. Not a lot of them, but I did see Cruella De Ville with an exceptional wig and a lovely princess complete with crown. If it hadn't rained again today, I may have seen more.

Today being a frightful day, it was time to get down to the nuts and bolts of the web site redesign. Most of the design decisions have been made regarding the new pages. Now I must go back through the existing site and look at current pages, pdf handouts, and images to determine what stays and what goes. I have been dreading this endeavor. Why? When I first got adobe acrobat professional I was enamored with creating PDF items. As a result, the number of handouts bordered on astronomical last year. I have weeded the handout collection furiously in the last six months, but the list was destined to be lengthy.

I ventured into the web folder (the irc folder is one part of the entire library web site) and set the page view to "by type" to get everything in it's proper place. Then, I started my list and indeed checked it twice. By lunchtime, with a break for crawling on the counters to update the book review bulletin board, I had a completed list. Here goes:

• html page total = 129
• image total, jpegs & gifs = 201
• remaining pdf handouts = 100

Naturally, I created a spreadsheet with three worksheets, one for each item type, and determined to list the names, page where the item lives (except of course for the html pages themselves), a description, and quick verification of if it stays or goes. Most of my afternoon was spent describing those 200 images, the bulk of which were mock Caldecott session shots. In some cases it was simple to determine what pictures should go, others will be a bit of a chore. I still have to match the pictures to the web pages and make sure planned updates work with what photos are getting the boot; that's what is on tap for tomorrow. It will probably take into next week to identify all of the other key elements. After that, I will be looking at the university web statistics. I plan to balance what I think should go with what the statistics support.

The IRC web site is well used, both on and off campus. The stats will let me know not only how the pages fair against the rest of the library web site, where many of the pages are consistently in the top ten, but also how they stack against each other. I already know I will not be getting rid of the children's author and information web pages. That alone narrows down the 129 html offerings by half. It is certainly easier to create the web site than it is to redesign an existing one.

It's time to go watch Emmit Smith dance and maybe vote for my favorites. Change that to definitely vote, the judges are annoying this evening!

Tags: Academic library web sites, Instructional Resource Center web sites, Web site redesign