Testing Library Web Sites: ARL Libraries Weigh In
Mary Pagliero Popp · 2001
Mary Pagliero Popp is the information technology public services librarian at Indiana University Libraries. Academic libraries rely on their Web sites and on their Web catalogs to provide users with a variety of information, access to full-text resources and digital library services. This growing reliance on the Web to deliver library services and resources means that academic libraries must pay more attention to how effective their sites are and how easy they are to navigate and to use efficiently. Librarians on the front lines need to know more about the methods of testing and evaluating Web sites to help them improve existing Web resources and plan new ones. At Indiana University Bloomington, we completed a comprehensive study of our Web site during spring 1999, working with two outside consultants and the usability coordinator of our campus computing service.. At the time we were doing our initial work in 1999, information about what other libraries were doing had not yet been met by publications focused on libraries. The library literature has now begun to include articles describing usability testing techniques and programs of evaluation. To date this literature, however, is small and includes few descriptions of what how libraries have tested their own sites.