M & E
Library Intranet
Action Plan
Action Plan
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This Action Plan is intended to provide direction for the renovation, maintenance, and rejuvenation of the M & E Library Intranet website. Currently, the Intranet is still in the development phase by the three staff members of the M & E Library who are trained in Dreamweaver, the web development tool chosen by the Purdue University Libraries. My Advanced features follow the Action Plan below.
Management
Policies - The M & E Library Intranet will be held to the same policies to which all Purdue University websites are governed. All intranet users as employees of Purdue University are held to these same policies.
Promotion - Because this is an intranet, promotion is not an issue in the way it would be for a public access site. New content and additions to the site could be communicated to all users via emails or at staff meetings.
Staff Involvement - Circulation staff would be in charge of changes that need to be made in the content on their page; likewise, librarians, for their page; support staff for their page; and reference staff for their page. This involvement will cultivate a sense of ownership by all users of the intranet. At this time, three of the nine staff members are trained in the use of Dreamweaver, so at least one of these individuals should be able to attend to the additions and changes needed for the intranet. If necessary, more staff members could be trained in Dreamweaver.
Maintenance
Link Rot & Other Problems - Because the audience is limited to the
staff members of a single library and all the users have daily contact
with each other, items such as updates, link rot, content additions, or
site problems are fairly easy to attend to and control. In addition, the
email contact on each page offers quick alerting of one of the webmasters
regarding any concerns or problems.
On-going
Maintenance - Because it is anticipated that the intranet will serve as
a source for current statistics in the various library departments, it
is insured that monthly updates (at the minimum) will occur on the pages
linking to statistics. It is at this time that all site links could be
regularly checked as well. These tasks would easily be implemented into
our normal monthly routine of statistic tabulation and submission to the
internal staff of the M & E Library and the campus departments that
track library circulation, reference, and document delivery statistics.
Top
When the M & E Library Calendar is in place, it will be updated as often as needed by the staff members, but can also be verified each week by the person responsible for the weekly scheduling for the reference desk (currently this is me, Monica Turner.) It is hoped that the M & E Calendar can be created in concert with the Microsoft Exchange Shared Calendar that is currently in use at Purdue University. This option is being explored to prevent users from having to place information on more than one calendaring system.
Page Helpers - as mentioned above under Staff Involvement, each staff member will have the opportunity to contribute to each page relevant to their job or role in the library. All staff members will be encouraged to recommend content for submission. These requests can be reviewed at staff meetings and if approved, can be added to the intranet. Those suggestions not approved for submission can always be bookmarked by the individual staff member on their own computer.
Change Detectors - The link checker in Dreamweaver will be used to detect link rot. This could be checked each month during the submission period for statistics.
Evaluation
Formative Evaluation - Could be continued with those staff members who did not already participate in the initial formative evaluation. These newly exposed members could be used for one-on-one testing and prototyping by card-sorting to determine if site meets user expectation of contents and information available. Surveys could be placed on the site or offered to staff members via email or paper form to generate feedback as well.
Summative Evaluation - After the M & E Library Intranet has been in place for one month, the staff will be consulted regarding their experience with and use of the site. The following questions will be posed:
- Does the site meet your needs?
- Does the content provided make it easier to locate information important for your job?
- How often do you use the Intranet?
- Do you feel the information is current, accurate, and reflecting changes efficiently? (i.e. are course pages available when needed? are staff schedules up-to-date?)
Polling of users and Field Tests could be used periodically to determine that the Intranet is still meeting the needs or the staff and that the site is operating optimally even during periods of heavy use.
Redesign Evaluation - Quarterly review of usage statistics for the M & E Library are already calculated. This could be expanded to include the Intranet and staff could use these statistics to determine if the site should be redesigned or expanded.
Usability - Through feedback from staff members, it can be determined which areas of the site are most valuable to users and whether some structural, grouping, or labelling changes should be made. Information from new employees (not that there is much turnover in our library) could be carefully considered and each new staff member should be utilized for usability testing and targeted as a valuable source for feedback.
Top
Over the last three years, I have collaborated with our webmaster to create Microsoft Publisher booklets for heavy-use topic areas for our library users. The four that have been designed to date are:
- Journal & Magazine Databases
- Companies & Investments
- Accounting & Tax
- Agricultural Economics
We provide these as
pointers to librarian-reviewed sources in these areas and to guide users
when a librarian is unavailable. The sources recommended in the booklets
correspond with the sources available from our M & E Library website.
Because only the webmaster and myself have had access to these materials
in a single restricted file; it has been difficult for the other two staff
librarians to access the booklets for revising and printing purposes.
Therefore, adding links to copies of these booklets on the M & E Library
Intranet will improve access for all staff members, especially the librarians.
It will also allow staff access for on-the-fly printing when our printed
stock has been depleted. These four booklets are linked from the
M & E Library
Intranet Reference page.
Eventually, it is hoped that a web-friendlier transition will be offered by Microsoft so that the Publisher booklets can be posted directly to the web. At this time, even a single page converted to web format has an immense amount of HTML code and the pages require a lot of cleanup and linking to each other to be functional.
Technology
Components
The first component I added to each page was the Javascript footer (scroll down to see it in place).
This script provides a great amount of valuable information and looks
very nice on the page. It is easily customizeable and I have already implemented it
on two additional sites that I have created for other SLIS courses.
For the M & E Library Intranet, it's most valuable function in my opinion will be the "Site Last Updated" section so that a user can tell at a glance whether the weekly/monthly updates have occurred.
The second component that I included on the site was a search box provided by FreeFind. I placed it on the left side of each page immediately below the navigation buttons (find it seated beneath Action Plan on each page). I discovered this free form while creating a site for a SLIS course and have been pleased with its accurate functionality, site map, and options for displaying on a page - I chose the small version, limited to the intranet site only - to conserve space on the site. Other options included web search options, different configurations of the box and layout, and text search link only.
This search box is vital for all users of the site to quickly locate the information they need. I anticipate it will be a time-saver and valued offering for all users. In addition, it offers a Site Map which was sixth on my 'most important features I would expect to see on a website' list that I stated way back in Webquest 1 Litebulb 1.