Web Advisory Group Home > Minutes > 2 June 2004

Minutes - 2 June 2004

Present: Harter (minutes), Hennig (chair), Quirion, Skuce

1. Testing new home page

There is a bug in Netscape 6.x versions that make the dotted lines on our page appear as little stripes, which pushes the page content down a bit. One solution Bob (from Hecht Designs) proposed was to leave out the doctype, which somehow solves that. However, he didn't recommend that as a solution. So we needed to decide whether to do that so that Netscape 6 users would see the exact same thing that users with more modern browsers see. After looking at it, we decided to not cater to older non-compliant browsers with bugs, but to stick with the most standards-compliant code, since that's the "right" thing to do. Netscape 6 users will not loose any functionality. We added a link to the bottom stripe that tells users "this site is best viewed in a standards-compliant browser" with a link to our browsers page. Nicole will update that page. We tested the page on Athena and Linux and experimented with different fonts, then decided to go with what we have. Since Athena user don't usually have the Verdana font, it goes to the next one in the list, which is Arial. Christine M. has been testing in Linux and Christine Q. will test in Opera. Nicole will send the page to the ATIC lab to get their comments on its accessibility and access keys. We can think about adding these to other pages later after we agree on which access keys we want.

2. New home page preview, June 7 or 8

Marion is working on the links in the Ask Us and Help Yourself directories, with the goal of updating them by June 7.On June 7 or 8 we'll put a spotlight on our current home page, letting patrons know that the new home page is coming June 15. It will link to the new page, and there will be a spotlight on the new page that links to an explanation of the page and its standards compliance.

3. Photo stripes

Stephen will research the four photo stripes that we currently have. For these and future photo stripes, we'd like to include:

• what's in the photowhere the original (document or space) is locatedlink to more information or a related collectionphoto credit and copyright information
• short blurb explaining the photo

Nicole will work with Heather over the summer to get new pictures for the fall. The pictures will be changed every 3 weeks during the summer.

4. Tip of the week/featured service/etc. space

Nicole will create subdirectories within the new /featured directory, for tips, resources, services, and hot topics. We would like the space to change every week, so we need a lot of topics. We currently have four. Nicole and Darcy will meet with Heather in June to discuss the strategy for encouraging people to contribute and manage these topics, as well as the How Do I... space.Nicole will look into buying a library of images that we can use for tips, and see what PSB has in their image library as well.

5. Making the page live

Nicole will email all-lib before she switches the web site to the new home page on the morning of June 15. She will update the quick links file that shows on all the lower level pages, update the file that controls all the shortcut URLs, and swap in the GIFs and new pages for the Ask Us and Help Yourself categories. Nicole will work with Heather to put articles about the new page in the IS&T newsletter, Bibliotech, the grad students newsletter, and any other publications. Nicole will ask to give a talk to the web authors at MIT, and will ask that the new Libraries page be spotlighted on the MIT home page sometime in June.

Next meeting:

Wednesday, June 16, 2-3:30, Barker Conference Room

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Web Advisory Group Home > Minutes > 2 June 2004