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Library Staff Feedback on UTALO Navigation Menu

December 10, 2004

Things unanimously agreed upon:

• Library Catalog should remain a link from the top navigation bar
• Library Catalog should not have a drop-down menu but should be a link directly to advanced search: options in drop down menu will move elsewhere or disappear
• Your Books, Your Renewals and Catalog Service Requests will move to Services Menu
• Find Articles will be renamed "Find E-Journals and E-Newspapers" and move under Research Menu (more on this later)
• Course Reserves, New Books and UTA Thesis will move under Research Menu (more on this later)
• Research menu should change to reflect end-user terminology
• Lose "Browse By"
• Change Find" submenu to
• Books
• Articles
• Journals
• E-Journals and E-Newspapers
• Databases
• Thesis and Dissertations
• Information by Subject Area
• Course Reserves (submenu for faculty and for students)
• Assignments (I added this one!)
• The pages to be pointed to from these submenus may exist or may need to be created.

• Under Services need to add in some fashion:
• "Your Info" which includes "Your Renewals" and "Your Books"
• "Service Request Forms" which includes the things currently under "Catalog Service Requests" and some of the items currently under Services in other menus (basically, any form anyone could use for requesting any service should be here)
  
• Reconsider the way the Course Reserves area is arranged; very confusing-consider including a "faculty" and "student" area under this heading.

Things strongly recommended:

• On homepage -- switch items in right and left columns (i.e. library catalog, web search, etc. move to left...hours, etc. move to right
• Have link from within catalog to the unprocessed materials request, and other pertinent request forms so users don't have to leave catalog to look for them
• Increase height/size of selection area in dropdown menus to assist users with accuracy
• Current "Find Articles" soon to be "Find E-Journals" page confusing b/c patrons feel they must insert/select something in each of the three blanks. Fix this somehow with layout/design/instruction.
• "Info for Visitors" should be more prominently displayed.

Things discussed but about which there was no decision:

• "About" pages redundant -- get rid of?
• Too much "stuff" on homepage -- need to simplify design/layout (UNT Library and North Carolina State University Library given as examples)