Michael O. Engle
Reference Librarian
Reference Department, Olin and Uris Libraries
Cornell University Library, Ithaca, New York 14853
Text updated December 4, 1996
The text of this article is published by The Haworth Press in
Internet Reference Services Quarterly
1:2 (1996), pages 7 - 15, Lyn M. Martin, Editor
INTRODUCTION *
DEVELOPMENT OF A LIBRARY WEB SITE *
RECENT WORK
SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING WEB PAGES *
THE FUTURE * NOTES
| ABSTRACT: Librarians have offered reference and instruction services at the reference desk and in classrooms for many years. Now a third location, the network, is emerging as a viable place for reference and instruction. The widespread availability of software to browse, create, edit, and serve World Wide Web pages has opened exciting new opportunities for teaching librarians. With this software and the proliferation of networked personal computers in colleges and universities, it is possible to deliver reference and instruction to library users at their own computers. Suggestions and guidelines for creating Web pages are offered. In the future, the Web technology may include asynchronous interactive participation in the teaching-learning process by students, instructors, and librarians. |
| Teach people to surf the Internet and they can tour the world. Teach people to serve on the Internet and they can touch the world. --- H. M. Kriz (1994) 1 |
The widespread availability of World Wide Web browser, editing, and server software for Macintosh and Windows computers and the growing ease of Internet access have combined to open a new world for reference and instruction librarians. The virtual world offers librarians an opportunity to use a combination of new software and more powerful hardware to extend services beyond the reference desk and the classroom and reach an audience not limited by physical proximity. We can now teach anyone who has a computer, a Web browser, and a network connection.
Establishing a network presence is surprisingly easy. Creating instructional documents using hypertext markup language (html) and serving them to users from office or department computers is similar to the more familiar tasks of preparing instructional materials with word processing software and searching online databases.
I begin by describing the development process from my first encounter with World Wide Web technology to its present use and configuration. Then I offer guidelines and suggestions to librarians who want to develop reference and instruction services on the Web, ending with a brief look at the future of Web technology.
By the fall, I was ready to try writing a local home page for my Web browser and marking it up with hypertext markup language (html) tags. With the help of a downloaded version of the HTML.edit editing software, I learned how to use html tags to produce Web pages, how specific tags alter the way text looks on a Web page, and how to access my newly created Web pages on the hard disk of my Mac, using the file:// prefix to the Uniform Resource Locator (URL). HTML.edit is a particularly useful software for learning about writing Web pages because the html tagging instructions appear at the opening of the program. One click of the mouse on the text and the instructions fade away, revealing a blank page ready to be filled with text and tagged. Another click on the help icon, and the instructions materialize again, as if out of thin air. This back-and-forth between instructions and Web pages is a very effective support for solo learning of html tagging.
As I began writing html and learning how to create links from one page to another, I understood that I could create a set of linked Web pages combining the content of existing instruction guides with a set of intermediate and prefatory pages to link and organize the instructional content of the guides. Further, I could organize those linked documents by following the same conceptual approach we use to teach research strategy, linking to the appropriate teaching document from each step in the research process.
While I was learning to write Web pages from scratch, Tony installed server software on his office computer. He began using WordPerfect-to-html translation software to convert WordPerfect instruction guides into Web pages. Then he installed the Web version on his server. This eliminated the need to rekey vast quantities of existing instructional text that we wanted to make available on the Web. It also showed me how the text of our paper instructional handouts looked as Web pages. The translation software allowed us easy access to our collection of instructional text, text that represented a considerable investment of labor by department librarians over a number of years.
Using the converted instruction guides on Tony's computer and the new Web pages I was writing, I constructed a set of linked pages patterned after an idealized model of the research process. Then, with the support of a variety of colleagues in the library and on the Internet, I downloaded the MacHTTP server software, installed it on my hard disk, and made the jump to publishing on the Internet. One particularly crucial bit of encouragement came across the Internet from Harry Kriz's self-published paper, "Teaching and Publishing in the World Wide Web." 2
As Tony mainstreamed the conversion of instruction guides, I continued knitting the Web pages into a self-paced tutorial on library research. Looking to the future at that time, late Fall 1994, we wondered how to encourage our departmental colleagues to write instructional materials for the Web. One plan was to bring up a server on the computer of every reference librarian in the department so that instruction documents could be easily developed by any librarian and linked to the departmental home page. In the end, we rejected this plan. First, it required that every staff computer be up and running day and night; problems with any one machine affected the whole Web. Second, it required a uniformly high level of interest in server software and extensive staff support for the project, neither of which existed. We have temporarily opted to mount the documents included in the Web-based tutorial on two servers. Plans are in the works to acquire a computer that will function as a dedicated Web server for the whole library.
Other librarians can contribute documents to the home page or the instructional pages by e-mailing to them to the keeper of the home page. Using the Source command under the View menu in Netscape, any librarian can display an existing Web page from the department server, pull the page into TeachText or SimpleText software, edit the page, and mail it back with a message to supersede the original. Recent installation of FTP software on the home page server has simplified the pulling down, editing, and superseding process even more. In the future, documents on the library-wide server will be updated using the same FTP process. The process requires a network connection for each author. When working on pages from a home computer without a network connection, it is still possible to write and edit html files by saving the files on a diskette and carrying it from one computer to another.
The instructional value of Web pages is not limited to locations where there is network access. A set of linked Web pages on a computer connected to an overhead projector and a presentation panel can be used as instructional presentation software where there is no network connection. For linear presentations that do not require hyperlinks, Microsoft PowerPoint can be easier and simpler to use than linked Web pages. It is possible to display PowerPoint presentations on the Web by configuring PowerPoint viewer software as a helper application in Netscape. This allows instructional presentations that combine the instructional strengths of these two rather different media.
When several people are involved in writing Web pages for one Web site, write a simple departmental style sheet or guidelines. Pages on the server should have consistent look and function regardless of who writes them. In many cases, this consistency has an obvious antecedent in the stable of printed instruction guides and bibliographies published before the arrival of the World Wide Web. These printed guides usually have consistent graphics, layouts, and logos. The guidelines should specify where consistency in form and content is important. For example, Web pages should state the date of last revision, names of authors or editors, and institutional affiliation. To avoid leading new users into dead ends, adequate returns (links back to preceding documents or home pages) should be provided in a standard format. Use of tags should be consistent, if possible. Of course, one person can edit all contributions to bring them in line with the departmental standard, but it is much easier to have the documents in the best shape possible before final editing.
Think carefully about the overall structure of your Web site. It can take the form of a walking tour, based on a real or imagined floor plan. The structure can mimic a generalized thought process, such as the process used to answer a reference question or gather information for a research project. Constructing a branching hierarchy of pages or a hub-and-wheel structure may be the best form for the material. Once you have established a basic structure, the process can be an organic one; the pages and links can grow and develop as needed.
Find the optimum size of the individual documents on your Web site. To reduce downloading time and user frustration, keep document sizes smaller than 25K, usually much smaller. Break long documents into smaller pieces or offer them in two forms: one long file for printing and shorter, linked files for everyday use. Watch how long it takes individual pages to load, and observe the kinds of problems people encounter when they use your Web pages. One useful technique for streamlining documents that require considerable scrolling is to begin with a table of contents linked to anchors at the beginning of each section of the document. Users can decide which part they want to read and then jump to that place, or scroll through section by section if they prefer.
Describe each Web page clearly in the title and the first header. Organize each page so the most important information stands out. Remember the user who has to type in a URL to get to your information, and name your saved Web pages (files) with short, simple, lowercase words.
Check your documents on a variety of browsers to see how they look. Different browsing software renders the same html documents in different ways. Try to be aware of the browser used by your main audience, and write something that looks good on that browser. Avoid PRE tags. PRE tags are meant to preserve the original formatting of the text you have written, but, ironically, they are particularly likely to look different on different browsers. Correcting the spacing to make the text display as you want it in one browser often disrupts the text layout on another browser. If your Web pages display best on a particular version of a particular browser, state that on your home page. This works best if your primary users have ready access to the version and browser type you specify.
Avoid including large image files; they take a long time to travel across the network because of their size. It is also important to use images that are not merely decorative but advance users' understanding of the instructional material.
Know who your primary users are, the bandwidth of their network connections, and the software they are likely to be using. Adapt your instructional content to the limitations of their hardware and software. For example, Web pages with a large number of images will be useless to users running text-only Web browsing software, like Lynx, because the images are not visible. Labeling images also helps Lynx users. On the other hand, if a large number of users are supplied with Netscape, as is the case at Cornell, you can incorporate some of the more advanced functions, like mailto, forms, and clickable maps.
Give your users a way to contact you. This can be as simple as including contact information prominently on your home page or as complicated as developing context-sensitive forms for user comments scattered throughout your Web structure. The mailto link in Netscape allows easy e-mailing of comments when users click on that link. Installing forms in Web pages also allows users to communicate with you without the necessity of configuring e-mail information into the browser software.
Check the links in all your documents to be sure they work. You may have inadvertently changed a link in the editing process. When adding or moving links, cut the URLs from the location box of a displayed site to reduce errors. Recheck the links in your Web pages periodically. When other servers change addresses or die, your link to those servers becomes a dead end for your users.
Don't wait to start working on developing Web pages until all your target users have network access. The same is true of enhancing existing Web pages and structures. Start now. By the time users have the infrastructure they need, you will have a well-developed resource for them to use. Keep up with new developments in the capabilities of Web software with small but regular investments of your time.
Develop or join a support network within your institution, with librarians at other institutions, and by monitoring a listserv, like Web4Lib.
Utilize the work that has already been done by others. Import and convert existing instructional material in your library into html format. When it works for your users, link to other Web sites that have well-developed instructional resources; it is not necessary to develop everything from scratch. Use the Source function in Netscape to display the html tagging in another Web page that you like, and adapt it to your situation. Remember to credit other Web authors if you borrow substantially from their work.
Find a site that links to information and instruction on writing, editing, and serving World Wide Web pages. One of these sites is at this URL: http://www.library.cornell.edu/okuref/enyacrl.htm. Instructions on signing up for the Web4Lib list are also available there.
Further ahead lies the possibility that new Web software will combine instructional Web pages with bibliographic and full-text database searching, and live, interactive reference help on the network. Multi-user dimension, object-oriented (MOO) software already allows these functions to work together in the Gopher environment. Librarians may begin to be available at specific times on the network the same way we currently work regular hours on the reference desk.
The collaborative possibilities of Web-based instruction are beginning to receive more attention from college and university teachers. Like e-mail, the asynchronous nature of the Web environment supports teaching-learning process where students, teachers, and librarians can contribute to a collection of class-specific Web pages. Students create hypermedia "papers" and send them to a server where instructors and class members can read them and respond with contributions and annotations, a process that will supplement and displace some of the face-to-face interactions of the classroom, reference desk, and office consultation settings.3, 4
Networked Web sites for specific classes open new possibilities for collaboration between faculty and librarians. Librarians can load bibliographies, tutorials, search suggestions, and instructional information directly onto the class Web site where students and the instructor can use them at any time. Librarians can also set up a direct e-mail contact on the site to encourage student questions. Because each student's work is readily accessible on the site, librarians can supplement the instructor and peer comments on ongoing individual work and class projects.
Class World Wide Web sites also provide librarians the opportunity to exchange hints and tips on creating and maintaining Web-based instructional materials with faculty. In many cases, our knowledge of computer hardware and software make us valuable allies for faculty who are integrating this new technology into their instructional practices.
Networked interaction cannot completely replace the subtlety and broad bandwidth of face-to-face communication. Body language and the personal assistance are highly effective reference and instructional tools. We should use each mode when and where it is most effective. We still need to provide a personal presence at reference desks, in classes, and at public terminals. But it is also time for librarians to bring our reference and teaching skills into the networked environment and to lead the way in implementing creative uses of this new instructional technology in colleges and universities. Developing a World Wide Web site is a manageable first step in that direction.
1. Harry M. Kriz, "Teaching and Publishing in the World Wide Web," 1994. [URL: http://learning.lib.vt.edu/webserv/].
2. Ibid.
3. Thomas J. DeLoughry, "Term Papers Go High Tech," Chronicle of Higher Education (7 December 1994): A23, A25.
4. Robert E. Jensen, "The Technology of the Future is Already Here," Academe 79 (July-August 1993): 8-13.