Web Redesign – Environmental Scans
Posted: June 26th, 2015One type of research the Web Redesign team does is simply looking at what other academic libraries are doing on their websites, also known as environmental scans. We have found it valuable to be able to quickly check conventions, because we know that following convention is good usability.
For the purposes of this project, we have developed a list of 30 academic libraries whose sites we check in a systematic way when we are doing this kind of research. This is not to say that we don’t also check other library websites from time to time, but we have found this list helpful for consistency. The list consists of 15 Canadian and 15 American academic libraries based on the following criteria:
• For Canadian universities, all are ARL members except for three that were specifically chosen for having a reputation for good usability (Ryerson, Simon Fraser, and Dalhousie)
• For American universities, all have a background in excellent usability. One resource used to research this was Emily Singley’s blog: useable libraries.
Canadian
1. Dalhousie: http://libraries.dal.ca/
2. Guelph: http://www.lib.uoguelph.ca/
3. McGill: http://www.mcgill.ca/library/
4. McMaster: http://library.mcmaster.ca
5. Ryerson: http://library.ryerson.ca/
6. Simon Fraser: http://www.lib.sfu.ca/
7. U of Calgary http://library.ucalgary.ca/
8. U of Alberta http://www.library.ualberta.ca/
9. U of Ottawa: http://biblio.uottawa.ca/en
10. U of Toronto: http://onesearch.library.utoronto.ca/
11. UBC: http://www.library.ubc.ca/
12. USask: http://library.usask.ca/
13. Uvic: http://www.uvic.ca/library/
14. Western: https://www.lib.uwo.ca/
15. York: http://www.library.yorku.ca/web/
American
1. Brown: http://library.brown.edu/
2. Cornell: https://www.library.cornell.edu/
3. Harvard: http://library.harvard.edu/
4. Ithaca College: http://www.ithacalibrary.com/
5. Michigan: http://www.lib.umich.edu/
6. MIT: http://libraries.mit.edu/
7. North Carolina State: http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/
8. Penn State: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/
9. Portland State: http://library.pdx.edu/
10. Stanford: http://library.stanford.edu/
11. U of Arizona: http://www.library.arizona.edu/
12. U of Minnesota: https://www.lib.umn.edu/
13. U of Notre Dame: http://library.nd.edu/
14. U of Washington: http://www.lib.washington.edu/
15. U of Western Michigan: http://wmich.edu/library
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