The purpose of this document is twofold: Part I explains the process the Dartmouth College Library will use to produce web publications and Part II is a guide for library staff as they create library related web pages. Web pages are library publications, and need to reflect a consistent image of the library system; they reflect the Dartmouth College Library's image to the world. Their design and content should be appropriately professional.
Please refer to the "WWW Jargon Glossary" section if you need clarification of a specific term.Information Systems will be responsible for creating and maintaining the library system top level home pages. Affiliated libraries, library departments, library committees, special projects and traditional library publications may decide to have a home page on the web. Each of these units can appoint their own webmaster. These webmasters will be responsible for creating and maintaining their home page and related web pages, as well as adhering to the standards and guidelines.
LOSC will review these standards and guidelines on an annual basis and any issues that arise pertaining to the library web pages should be forwarded to this group.
A webmaster from the Information Systems Department will be responsible for developing and maintaining the "library system" or central library home pages. These home pages will lead to a set of pages which describe the library system and provide a number of central functions. The overall design, logo, standard buttons and other library graphics will be approved by Library Administration.
Each affiliated library, department, or standing committee can appoint their own webmaster who will be responsible for creating and maintaining the unit's web pages, following the guidelines in this document, and using the standard library design, logo, buttons and other shared graphics.
The "library system" webmaster will maintain a centralized directory containing the standard logos, images, and forms that affiliated webmasters could use.
A standard set of functions/tools should be developed that webmasters could take advantage of when creating the library pages. This could include the following:
Automate an index service for web pages to enable searching of library pages.
Automate the process by which each library would add links to external web resources to a master subject list.
Automate the process by which library hours would be updated.
Automate the library staff directory so that changes in staff would be made in one place.
Create password control for pages pointing to licensed information.
Create and maintain a file of standard forms for ILL, reference requests, document delivery requests, etc.
Automate a process to check dead links on library pages.
In addition to the pages that are public and for the world to see, there is a need for "internal use only" pages. Internal documents are not expected to be password protected. A standardized location will be created for internal documents/pages. There will be occasions during which internal documents will be shared with people outside of Dartmouth. URLs for these documents can be shared with the appropriate audience.
A mailing list of webmasters will be created to provide a forum for people to share ideas, tips, problems and solutions.
Every home page should have the full name, full address, phone number, email and other contact information in a prominent position, such as in the title heading, document text, or graphical link. You may want to use the email address for the group that maintains the page rather than the name of an individual in the department. Remember this information will need to be maintained as job responsibilities change.
A brief description of the affiliated library, department or committee responsible for the pages should be on the home page.
Every home page should have a contents list that includes the following information, by type of organization:
Affiliated Library:
Location
Staff
Hours
Services
Collections
Suggestions/Feedback
Searchable Index to library web pages
Department:
Staff
Business Hours
Suggestions/Feedback
Searchable Index to library web pages
Committee:
Membership
Charge
Suggestions/Feedback
Searchable Index to library web pages
Project:
Description
Governing body
Suggestions/Feedback
Searchable Index to library web pages
Publication:
Description: Author, Title, Date
Suggestions/Feedback
Searchable Index to library web pages
A link to the Dartmouth College Library Home Page should be on every home page.
Final versions of policy documents should indicate the name of the approving body and the date the document was approved.
Avoid Dartmouth specific terminology whenever possible (e.g. use "email" as opposed to "Blitzmail"). Explain acronyms such as DCIS, and explain these the first time they appear.
Avoid library jargon and library-specific terminology whenever possible. Keep the user of the information in mind.
A copyright statement, if appropriate, should be on the home page. In most cases this should broaden the use, not restrict it. The standard wording should be:
Permission must be obtained and the source of the permission cited when using material that is protected by copyright.
Every page should contain accurate, up-to-date information.
The date of the last update for the page and the initials of the person responsible should appear at the bottom of each page; for example: "Last updated 3-7-96 (xyz)."
Spelling and grammar should be reviewed carefully.
Include a statement of document status (i.e. "DRAFT", "For Review", "Beta Version", etc.) if appropriate. "Under Construction" pages should not be linked to public pages.
Indicate restricted access, if appropriate. If access is to be restricted, this should also be discussed with the library system webmaster before the document is sent to the public server. There are various levels of restricted access and the desired level of restriction may not be possible under our current web and server configurations.
Include a warning statement if a link will lead to a large (+50K) document or image.
Avoid browser specific terminology in the HTML. Know your primary user clientele and preview your pages with their typical browser interface.
Graphics should always use the ALT tag containing some short descriptive text about the graphic (i.e. if it is an arrow pointing left, use ALT text such as [LEFT ARROW]). It is not necessary to avoid graphics just because all browsers can't view them. The default text [IMAGE] will appear in all browsers that do not support graphics when ALT text is not used.
Link text should make sense even if the link were not present, as with a paper copy. For example, do not use: "To ask a question, click here.", use instead: "To ask a question, send email to reference@dartmouth.edu".
Organize pages such that entire folders are portable; use relative URLs.
Include a "What's New" section on the home page if appropriate; make sure this is reviewed and kept up-to-date.
Links to sites outside of Dartmouth should be clearly identified. For example: if you're making a link to the University of Michigan's Economic Bulletin Board then label it as such and not as a generic "economic data" link.
To ensure the Dartmouth College Library home pages present a consistent, professional presentation to the world, the library is standardizing on some of the graphic elements. These elements might include: page design, logos, standard sets of buttons or navigational design and devices. Many of these elements may only apply to a first-level "entry suite" of professional pages with a consistent look and behavior which will describe the library system as a whole. However, it is still under discussion as to how many levels into the web page structure these consistently designed pages will be required.
The design should be appropriate to the medium and the message. It should reflect the mission, goals, style, and image of the Dartmouth College Library. These pages are a type of library publication and should be viewed as such. Anyone with internet access can view our pages, therefore the pages should present a professional view of the Dartmouth College Library to the world.
Include navigation back to the home page.
Include links on each page within a particular logical collection of pages back to the home page for that particular collection.
Each page must have a title, short but as informative as possible. Include this in the HTML title field.
Documents which are divided into multiple pages must have the document title and publication date at the top, to help identify the whole.
Every document should have a footer, separated from the body of the page by a horizontal rule. This should include an update date and an author's initials among other information.
-- The whole site
A consistent look to the collection of pages should be attempted.
Try to provide visual design consistency across related documents.
Try to implement a navigational design scheme which orients the user at all times. Documents should be designed to minimize users' reliance on the client's navigational buttons (e.g., back & forward buttons, history lists). Button bars are a good idea, but beware of button bars composed solely of icon graphics.
Create many paths to information; for example utilize a table of contents and an index.
Page design should emphasize the power of hypermedia links to take full advantage of the medium.
Avoid "dead-end" documents where no explicit links are made back to other related pages in the web site, or to the main "home page" of the site.
--Individual pages
Attempt to create a short and simple home page.
Tables, frames, and forms should be used when the feature significantly enhances the effectiveness of the presentation. Alternatives should be provided for those using browsers lacking these features.
Documents such as policies, procedure manuals, and extensive annotated bibliographies are likely to be long and intended primarily to be printed or downloaded. The web user will have to scroll through the document on the screen. Although this is unavoidable for long texts, it is helpful to do the following:
partition long documents
provide a table of contents and text anchors
have "back to the table of contents" buttons
provide a link to a file that contains the full document on one page for printing and downloading; give the direct URL for this document for citation purposes.
--Graphics
Avoid large graphics (>50K); limit large images used solely for visual appeal.
Warn the audience if a link leads to a large graphic(>50K).
Avoid many little graphics.
Use of graphics should support the information on the page. Many users turn off images in their web browsers to speed up their connections, so make sure the page can be understood if users have their images turned off.
Consider using a thumbnail of the image and linking to the full-size copy. If the image won't survive being scaled down to thumbnail size, try using a small portion of the image for the thumbnail.
Minimize the number of colors being used in a single image. Design your pages so that they look good on 256-color screens. 50 colors is a reasonable limit.
Don't use graphics referenced from another site. Make sure all your graphics are accessible from the server delivering your pages.
Use graphical bullets for a purpose, not because they look "neat." Use bullet colors which borrow from other graphical elements on a page.
Use a small set of bullets or accent graphics repeatedly, rather than using a large number only once each.
Use graphical divider bars sparingly.
Preview your images on several hardware and browser combinations that might be typical of the equipment your primary user clientele will be using. Because of differences in monitors, the same image can appear lighter or darker on different platforms. For example: faces which look good on a UNIX platform can block in completely, losing much detail, on some Macintosh screens. Images created to look good on Macintosh screens may appear washed-out on VGA displays or UNIX workstations.
Take care with background images. Text/background combinations legible on a 16- or 24-bit screen are sometimes unreadable on a 256-color system. Keep backgrounds pale and muted, to avoid interfering with text.
Understand the pitfalls of changing the default text color for a page. Setting the text color on a web page can cause trouble, as can use of special fonts.
Image maps, the clickable graphics used on web pages, can present a rather poor user interface, so use these with caution. Unless the image itself has well-delineated "active" regions, there is no clear indication of where a user should click. Having clicked, there is no feedback to indicate that a user's click has been recognized by the browser.
Use bold, italics, blink, ticker-tapes, and animation sparingly.
Do not copy or use copyrighted images.
Library web pages should be located in the library directory on the www.dartmouth.edu machine, not in personal accounts on coos or any other web-capable machine. Apply for an account at: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~apply/
Units are expected to review their pages at least quarterly. Each unit should document their own procedure for maintaining their pages, this includes a schedule for updating, who will do the updating, etc.
Test links before mounting pages and have a schedule for checking and removing dead links.
Spell-check and proofread documents. It works best if the person who edits the web documents is not the same person who proofreads them.
Conformance to current HTML DTD (Document Type Definition) -- avoid use of browser-specific tags.
Developers should check their HTML against an HTML verification tool. It is best to validate your HTML code against a Formal Public Identifier (FPI). The FPI indicates theflavor of HTML in your document. As of August 1998, the most common FPI is W3C 3.2 . W3C 3.2 was developed together with vendors including IBM, Microsoft, Netscape, Novell, SoftQuad, Spyglass, and Sun Microsystems.
Use ALT attribute for images <IMG> for the benefit of browsers without graphics capabilities.
Library web accounts are not to be used for personal pages.
Any page listing staff may not allow direct links to staff personal pages.
The webmaster is responsible for making backups of their web pages.
A central directory will be established for images that can be shared
among library web pages (such as directional icons, colored bullets). Do not copy t
these images to your own directory. This defeats the caching functionality of web
browsers and causes the images to load more slowly. The image directory is:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~library/images/
Available images can be found at:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~library/images/dir.html
Do not link "under construction" pages to public library home pages. If your page is "under construction", either tell people the URL needed to reach the page directly, or link the page to an "internal only" library page.
Information Systems has set up a number of services for web page developers.
You should email library webmaster
to be included in the Web Working Group (WWG) mailing list. You can use this
mailing list for any library related web questions. The WWG also has a
web page at:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~library/WWG/
This page includes links to relevant services (checkbot report, html validator)
which can help you maintain your web page.
HTML code (markup language) should liberally use line breaks, white space, and comments to aid in its interpretation, analysis, and maintenance.
Check finished document with variety of browsers, both text based (Lynx) and graphical (Netscape, Mosaic, etc.).
Warn users if the page uses advanced features or HTML extensions, or only works with one kind of browser.
Low-resolution thumbnail images in text, pointing to full-resolution external images.
Test your pages with your primary user group.
Each library is encouraged to apply for an email account to receive web-related comments from users. Ask for a generic name such as "Feldberg Webmaster".
New pages and major revisions or additions to existing pages should be approved by the department head, committee chair or other governing body.
Use relative pathnames in links within your own web page structure. Use absolute pathnames in links that refer to pages that are not yours (including other library pages). Example:
Relative: "Staff/staff_functions.html"
Absolute:"http://www.dartmouth.edu/~feldberg/Staff/functions.html"
Create templates to make adding new pages easier, more efficient and help maintain consistency across the site as a whole.
Revised: August 1998
URL Correction: May 1999
Creation date: May 1996
Created by: LOSC Web Page Standards and Guidelines Taskforce
Members: Barbara DeFelice
Mary LaMarca
Tom Mead
Jennifer Merrill
Karen Sluzenski
----------Back to Table of Contents---------------