I just completed a random trip through the internet; choosing public library websites to see how they convey "search" on their pages. Only one of 10 did the same thing we did (yea Orlando!) while others had a variety of options:
~offering no search box on the home page but links to the catalog or to "search the site"(Salt Lake City or New Orleans)
~simple "search the catalog" box (San Francisco Public) to multi-optioned "search the catalog" box (Phoenix Public)
~"how do i find" box with many options to choose from (Boston Public)
~federated-like searches such as New York Public where the search box returns results from its website and their 3 catalogs, same with Hennepin
Some have a "link to site map" feature - do you use this? I've searched for this only in desperation when I haven't found what i'm looking for on the site using their navigation. Do you ever "search the site" on arapahoelibraries.org?
2 comments:
I am a big fan of offering patrons choices...instead of me choosing what or how they want to search. Having only a search link into the catalog asssumes that everything patrons need can be found in a book...and while our physical collection is very important...books are just a portion of what libraries have to offer. We have databases, programs, websites (hand picked of course)...and staff expertise. We need to be able to point patrons to all of these resources and market them all effectively. Let the patrons then choose what they want, and how they want to get there.
Christine Kreger
I often use the site map of a website, because the search box doesn't often give good results - by looking at the whole site, I can often figure out where it is I might want to go to get the info I need.
Case in point - trying to find the days that the library is closed on the ALD web site. Typing in "Library Closed" in the search box returns one result - "Your child and the library"... not what I was looking for. The proper term is "Library Closings" - which does provide the link to the proper page. However, I guess trying to be helpful, there is a "Did you mean library+closing?" link on the page which takes me back to the "Your child & the library page" which isn't much help at all.
I've done this search on a number of occasions, so I know the right terms, but if you don't then the "search this page" process can be quite frustrating - either giving no information (try "holiday closing") or burying the info in a long list of other links (try "holiday").
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