Our second LibGuide design meeting took place October 4th.
Before today’s meeting, I spent the better part of two work days examining the Maps and Remote Sensing Imagery guide in light of other map collection websites and other maps library guides that were available as templates through the LibGuides Community. From from New York State Library, I was able to update a list of links in the area of gazetteers. I also experimented on the Maps BETA which inserting annotated links to geoportals around the world. I collected screen grabs from map library libguides - the University of Delaware, Kent State University, Miami University of Ohio, Florida State University, the University of California at Davis, and the State Library of Victoria - for presentation in PowerPoint. These slides were sent to Chris for his review before our meeting - 12 hours total prep time.
I also set along talking points for him to consider:
- a better location map as well as a better breakdown of filing locations would make describing the location of different resources much easier
- wondering if the ‘Gazetteers’ tab might not be better called ‘Finding Places.’
- as you are aware, several tabs are currently not serving a purpose: articles, books/reference, citation, for starters. They need to be relocated and redesigned or removed. Hopefully we can spend some time tomorrow discussing design considerations.
- we need to develop a uniform style for the NYS Map Pathfinder and New York Historical Map reference pages – visitors should know that they are being referred to another library, for example – and these two resources need to be combined.
- map holdings on Content DM seem to be missing their images. Do you know what is up?
- if material is to remain on Library Wiki, it needs to be more adequately titled and described (with appropriate metadata) and linked into the LibGuide
- all of the guides need to make better use of the lefthand bar for navigation
- LibGuide mentions “locked storage” (outside of Special Collections). Apparently this was done during the time when map libraries were being targeted for theft. I am wondering is such safeguards are still truly necessary.
- LibGuide makes reference to reference documents in Content DM that are not accessible through search
- LibGuide makes frequent reference and includes email links to former or retired map librarians
- Once the LibGuide is cleaned up, we should make more use of hyperlinks between sections rather than textual descriptions for navigation
- Map Loans & Reproductions policies are dated 2008 – are they still valid?
- What are your thoughts on Cynthia Dietz’s web publication “Implementing Geospatial Web Services: A Resource Webliography” - link – seems add that open source mapping platforms aren’t better linked into the site.
Final thoughts that I sent Chris: the LibGuide currently directs visitors to collections in a number of formats, including straight web pages with embedded images, the Library Wiki, and ContentDM. Perhaps we need to look at each of these formats for presenting map information and identify which are the most helpful and ways to make them even more user-friendly.
During the 1 hour meeting, we first reviewed some of the changes that Chris had made to the home page of the Maps BETA (see other October 4th post below). He asked me what I thought about the various elements that he had updated on the page - in particular the use of the Science and Engineering Library hours. I suggested that there might be a way to link instead to the library calendar so that this listing is updated automatically every time the main listing is. He felt that this was a good idea and promised to look into it.
Then we considered the LibGuide page for US Coast Survey Maps of Long Island, 1830s to 1890s. This is one of the most completely described pages as behooves materials that of tremendous historic interest and that are otherwise not available on the web. However the navigation to the numbered T sheets is not ideal. The clearest map of Long Island divided into towns is not used for navigation purposes. Rather are text strings referring to the sections of each county,
North Central Suffolk County
South Central Suffolk County
that when clicked lead the user to "guide maps." These are late twentieth century base maps with villages and hamlets in bright shades. The T-sheet dividing lines (the ostensible purpose) are in yet another color (pink) which is very difficult to discern. The purpose of this map is no means clear to the user, even though the need for such a guide is of tremendous importance, since it is very difficult to navigate the ContentDM site without it. I suggested that instead the much simpler map of Long Island towns be used. This has the advantage of using a geographical designation that is familiar to most if not all Long Islanders. Multiple maps may need to be pulled up for each town but this shouldn't create too much difficulty for online users.
The rest of the time, Chris and I reviewed our various options for updating the LibGuide as a whole. I asked Chris whether a print guide to map collections existed outside of what had been posted to the LibGuide. He stated that he did not believe that there was one still around. If there was one it might have been tossed with the printed materials had been cleared out when he took over the office from the former map librarian. He was able to provide me with a Collection Development Policy for Maps dated 2011 that had been prepared by Cynthia Dietz, which has proved quite useful in my efforts to understand how the collections have developed over time.
Reviewing the screen shots of other maps library websites and guides, we agreed that Kent State University would serve as an appropriate model. While Chris left the meeting with a number of action items, my task in comparison would be far more simple - 1 hr. I agreed to develop schematic websites with SBU map library materials and links following the Kent State model. I would also update progress to date on the tumblr internship blog [2hrs].