Director’s Reflections...HSLS Web Redesign in Process
HSLS librarians are engaged in a yearlong effort to update and redesign the library’s Web site. The goals of the project are to improve usability and navigation, and to make it easier for users to quickly identify the information they need.
Because our user population is so diverse, the design team’s first step was to ask users’ opinions about our current Web site. Team members conducted in-depth structured interviews with an invited cross-section of users, and also posted a brief survey on the Web site’s front page for a week in late October 2005. We were surprised and gratified to receive more than 1,000 responses to the online survey during that short period, with detailed positive and negative feedback, and many suggestions for improvement.
We learned a lot about you, our users. Most importantly, you told us that you couldn’t do your work without us. Some of you think our Web site is well-organized and easy to use; others think it’s too wordy and difficult to navigate. Some think Ovid is terrific; others use colorful language to describe why they don’t like it.
You are happy to use electronic journals from your offices, and wish that we had even more titles available. We’re working on it - elsewhere in this issue is a list of new 2006 subscriptions, including The Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics. Remember that the HSLS Document Delivery department can supply scanned copies of any print article to your e-mail address.
Many of you are uncertain about how to access HSLS resources when you are off-campus or away from the hospital. Currently you need to either obtain an HSLS Account or use your Pitt e-mail account name. However, in the next few months you will be able to instantly register for remote access from anywhere in the world using your Pitt or UPMC e-mail address as an account name.
Though unrelated to Web design, the most common user complaint is that UpToDate is only available to those directly connected to the Pitt or UPMC computer networks. We have repeatedly, but unsuccessfully, attempted to negotiate remote access to this resource. Other large academic health sciences libraries experience the same difficulty. Consider using FIRSTConsult, Access Medicine or clinical electronic textbooks in place of UpToDate if you are off network.
The HSLS Web design team is hard at work. Watch for our new, improved Web site to debut later this year.
--Barbara Epstein
