Hours: 8 Total Hours: 38
Today started out with my usual meeting with Jane to discuss the day. She asked me to look into a Website Usability lit review, and discussed some of the things she knew were missing from the site – User feedback, a friends page, a virtual tour, and a research guide. We would also be meeting with Stephen and Kellen in the afternoon to discuss the Cornell Diaries.
I started by reviewing the library website myself, and making notes where I found typos, or issues. Then I began working on the lit review. I started by going back to articles I read in my 60613 class by Cobus, Xie and Zhang. I used the library website to look for more articles, though I had a little bit of usability problems there myself, being more familiar with KSU’s system. All in all, I saved 18 articles to my Drive. During this, I met the previous Library Director when she stopped by my desk to get a few things out of the drawers.
Next, I started reading the more recent of the saved articles and taking notes. There are many ways to do a usability study, from general user surveys, to focus groups, to moderated user tests. At the end of the day, I created a step-by-step procedure document for conducting a Usability Test.
Then it was time for our meeting about the Cornell Diaries. We discussed what kind of objects they were creating, which dictates the kind of collection we need to set up in the Digital Commons. They have a document collection, a photo collection, and some ephemera, so we will be setting up three environments for the collection. They will be sending Jane a banner and description so she can set up the Collection for them to put the items in. (This has been done since this meeting, the collection will be here: http://digitalcommons.otterbein.edu/cornell/.) She asked Kellen and me to think about the metadata and preservation plan for these items.
I met Rares after this meeting, to learn about what he does at the Library. He coordinates library and information literacy instruction, including teaching the library course. He, like most, also works reference and collection development, and serves as a Library Liaison. He is also on several committies, including self-governance, judiciary, and general education. He also let me know that his student is working on the reference guide for the library website.
After this meeting, I began doing some research into Library Virtual Tours. I began by looking at Denison, KSU, Kenyon, and Capital University’s library websites. Then I Googled “Library Virtual Tour” and got hits from Butler at Columbia, Cambridge, University of Illinois, University of Denver, Kings College at Cambridge, University of South Dakota, Interlochen and Penn State, as well as a study done in 2000. I emailed a summary of what I found to Jane, suggesting at the very least, a floor-by-floor listing of the library, and a wish list of interactive pictures of each floor.