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COPYRIGHT 2005 Information Today, Inc.
The ubiquity of the Internet has profoundly changed the way that most of the world's citizens publish, look for, and access information. It's hard to imagine that just over 10 years ago, information professionals were explaining what the Internet was and why a library should build a Web site.
In 1993 and 1994, Web development was the province of the technologically daring and adventurous among us. The first Web sites were simple pages filled with text and hyperlinks on a grey background. A library Web site usually consisted of two to three pages listing contact information, services, and hours. When image elements were added to HTML language, Web sites sprouted menu bars filled with clipart, animated GIFs, and graphical bullets. The Web was a visual medium.
By 1997, Web development was moving from the dominion of the techies to the reign of the creative designers. Design guru David Siegel, author of Creating Killer Web Sites, became the de facto champion of the concept of Web site as experience. He believed a Web site should act as a place with an entry and exit point and offer several paths through the site. Splash pages proliferated. From this point to the present, it was like riding a tidal wave of more online content, tools, and services.
Library Web sites changed with the times, evolving from online brochures to sites that offered direct service and content delivery. These sites were designed and redesigned to accommodate longer and longer lists of resources. When the lists became too hard to maintain, Web developers harnessed the power of databases to create dynamic pages listing resources by department, subject areas, audience, and format in order to facilitate exploration and browsing by Web site visitors. During this time of rapid growth, many of us became library Webmasters and/or intranet managers and learned the tools of the trade on-the-fly.
In looking back over my experience building library Web sites, intranets, and digital library sites, I have realized certain truths. Many of my lessons learned have to do with how people actually interact with Web sites,...
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