Crash Course in Web Design for Libraries

Citation

Cloete, L. (2008), "Crash Course in Web Design for Libraries", Library Hi Tech, Vol. 26 No. 3, pp. 491-492. https://doi.org/10.1108/07378830810903418

Librarians communicate increasingly with their clients and staff via the World Wide Web. Web pages can be changed and updated instantly. In order to create a web site for a library, knowledge of hypertext markup language (HTML) and web design is required. Crash Course in Web Design for Libraries is an introductory course in web design for librarians.

The author has created a mythical library called the Red Rose Library (www.redroselibrary.com) that provides many of the services of a typical library. The Red Rose Library serves as an example of a library for which a web site is designed and set up. The reader is able to refer to the web site while working through the course.

The chapters of the workbook have been written sequentially to take the librarian or reader step‐by‐step through the process of designing a web site. The workbook is a clear and concise guide, starting with the basics of HTML. It explains how to add images and links to other web pages, how to utilise cascading style sheets, lists, tables and forms. Each chapter is replete with screen shots to illustrate how each design aspect or technique is applied. Cut‐and‐paste techniques and templates are used as examples of how to create pages without the need to learn HTML and are all downloadable from the demonstration web site.

The author provides user‐friendly definitions and avoids using complicated technical terminology. Aspects that are not covered in the course are pop‐up windows, embedded music and videos and special programming scripts. These aspects are considered well beyond what is needed to set up a good library web site. A comprehensive table of content and detailed index assist the reader to navigate through the content of the course.

The workbook is intended for librarians with no programming background to assist them in designing a professional‐looking library web site. The course could either be followed by librarians who want to design a web site for the first time or by those who wish to refurbish their libraries' current web sites. The course will also be useful to other readers who wish to design non‐library web sites. It is assumed that the readers are familiar with the Microsoft Windows environment.

The author is a Professor of Information Science and Engineering at Pratt Institute's Graduate School of Information and Library Science in Brooklyn, New York. Since 1996 he has been developing web sites professional societies and educational entities. A distinguished lecturer for the IEEE Computer Society and the IEEE Engineering Management Society, he has presented tutorials in India, Canada, Puerto Rico and the United States.