We’re having a number of debates discussions amongst our librarians these days. Principally the discussions have taken two avenues: 1) access to electronic information via the library website and 2) federated searching via the library website. Basically it’s all about our website and how we envision it being used.

Some librarians advocate for the most simplified process possible. Students don’t need to know that articles come from databases and that peer review is an editorial process. Proponents of this argument suggest that we add links to the homepage that will take the user to the expected content with as few decisions (clicks) as possible along the way. Want a peer reviewed article? Follow the peer reviewed article link, in which the requisite checkboxes will have already been checked on your behalf.

A good bit of support for the first viewpoint (shortcutting) says that we see and interact with so few students in the library (distance learning, y0), via email, or on the telephone that we have to assume a large percentage of the unseen are not finding what they are looking for. And if they’re finding it, they’re likely doing so with more frustration than necessary. For this reason it has also been suggested that we invest in some kind of federated searching tool.

For me, personally, I have a difficult time wearing the librarian hat and the design hat at the same time. I’ve been accused of striving for the ideal (and perhaps missing the reality) in these discussions—and I’m generally okeh with that.

My librarian objection is that is our job to teach these skills and I fear our students will go out into a world full of libraries that might not have a “Peer Reviewed Articles” link. If we’ve taught them to think categorically about research they will know that they learned that articles are found in databases and try to start there. I don’t want to find that we’ve handicapped our students by “dumbing things down.” True, not all of our students (by far) have any plan for further formal education. I still expect them to become competant consumers and producers of information. This also doesn’t mean that I don’t grok the other argument, I’ve just chosen to hope for the best, I guess.

If our students don’t have these skills let’s work harder to get the education to them, not make it easier to check-out on the process. Distance learning students need librarians and IL instruction—hell, everyone needs this stuff if you ask me—and I’m just going to have to stalk those students who are roaming the campus but never coming in the library. Don’t want to learn controlled vocabulary in the library? Fine, I’ll bring it to you in the cafeteria, the gym, and this here screencast tutorial.

My design stance on this is that providing all of these links is just adding clutter to the homepage. Good design needs room to breathe and all of that jazz. It’s a pretty short argument, but an important one. We just spent the better part of year a completely scrapping our woefully inadequate website and building a new one. The last thing I want is to see it overrun with rampant linking. That’s what all that beautiful nav is about.

A colleague’s Frostian reflection today was that she wished our students didn’t have to choose between two roads (on our website) in order to search for information. I think this is an interesting notion. Where she sees too many roads, I think I see too few. I see the need to simplify access for some students but not at the expense of options and precision.

How do you navigate these discussions in your library? Where is the happy medium? Do we need to go to the completely customizable portal model? Click here if you want your website eerily simplified, click here if you’d like frustration with a side of controlled vocabulary…