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Notes from Intranet Staff Focus Groups
(Focus Group Sessions were held March 2, 3, 7, 9, 10 and 11)
- Instant tutorials
How to make a proxy-patron
Graphic tutorials
What do I do if …
Tutorial on licensing terms and risks
"How to" questions for automation type things
Tutorials (e.g. mapping to the Q)
Tutorials: scheduling rooms, how to do time sheets
- Student should have access to an area
For changes in procedures
To leave information for them
Email is not effective in leaving information for them
Should have a student area
- Web sites by departments with duties per staff members
Ability to go direct to a "staff responsibility page"
What people in IT do – unsure who does what
List of "who does what"
Organization charts for all areas
Physical addresses of all library facilities, including room numbers and phone numbers
Links to contract vendors (Acquisitions)
Link to the ordering site
IR staff could look at their own
Favorites to come up with this list
FAQs on serial processing, etc.
List of e-journals for quick referral
Be able to run Access reports from the Intranet page
Direct link to SFX
Some place for Tommie’s communication with DLS
Links to branch homepage
Own internal page for units for internal communication and issues.
Own department communication place
Keep communication and information for Graduate Research Seminars – project management, keeping track of what is getting done and what is left to do
Links to the pages librarians have developed for their own use so we can see them when librarians are not in
FAQs in specific disciplines
Put in the "bad guy" pictures that Access Services has posted so we all know who to look out for
Reserve list, kept current daily (Raeanne's list), with checkout limits for each item
Something for everyone, but then our own group separately
- Have staff announcements
Births
Hospital stays
"like the chat thing we had"
For sale
News and announcements by Program Area
Personnel changes, databases not working, new projects
Suggestion box
Bulletin board for selling things
Picture gallery
Availability of photos of the facilities – historical and digital
Be sure to check with staff before posting their pictures on the web or in newsletters
Library Staff Association
Parties
Pictures
Campus stuff / pictures
"Break time" area
Fun things to do, pictures of staff, leisure oriented staff activities
News of the day
This week in history
"Library Larry"
Funny pictures
Updates on the building and on campus construction
Library Staff Association
Lounge roster
Entertainment Committee
Should be a fun page, a place to put pictures
Place to sell stuff
Could be used for the "Expanding Horizons" project
Motivational quotes
Meetings in the metroplex
Staff directory, although it is already in Outlook
Unified directory of everybody and everything (phone, email, cell phone, pagers, IM identity, office location) – for people and departments and services points
--Also include the other entities in the building like the Writing Lab, GIS Lab, IT Lab
Detailed list of everyone with their e-mail address, extension, what they do
- Instant access to policies, especially for new employees
Access to all policies
Need to distinguish policies that are different depending on location (branch policies)
Policies
Procedures
Department procedures in one place
UTA style manuals and guidelines for print and web publications
Policies in one area, as well as in own unit’s area or web page
- Calendar, so we can see everything in relation to what is going on
Library shared calendar
Room scheduler
Deadlines page: things that occur all the time
Performance reviews
Budget information
Plug in the Graduate research seminars
Location of group meetings, where classes are going to meet
Centralized scheduling for calendars
Calendar with ability to add to agendas, like for the Library Staff Meetings
Listing of what is going on in the Libraries
Calendar of everything happening in the library
Calendars: library and campus
Calendar for what is happening today
Link to news and events – these are hard for everyone to post and find
Hours of other services on campus that we use – like food court availability during intersession
Campus activities
Ability to schedule rooms
Room calendar – what is going on where
Schedules for sessions for staff on campus
Calendar with links to the activities mentioned in the libraries and on campus
- Information about professional meetings and powerpoints from those meetings
Blogs for departments. And be able to read all of the blogs
Forums to discuss library issues
Someplace to discuss or to record why we do things (like do not collect textbooks, and explain the fine policy)
Research interest area to post what our research interests are to gain collaboration
For possible publishing, research, poster sessions, etc.
Establish interest groups
Forums for discussions
Private forums or boards within a unit to collaborate in privacy (not open to others)
Links to professional organizations and listservs
Things going on the library world:
Hot topics, trends, things to read
Links to Presidential libraries
Grants available
Travel information
Link for contract state airfares
Every department have a blog
Registration and other information for conferences coming up in the year
- HR stuff
How to hire a student
What employees and employers do
Job opportunities in the Library
Place for training and staff development things
Place for registration deadlines so we don’t have to keep up with them
Staff training opportunities
Opportunities for professional development
Listing of the brown bag lunches
New employee’s page: a button just for them
Could include reminders
Manager’s page for questions that come up often regarding hiring , hours work-study students can work
- List of committees and their minutes
Committee listing of who and what they do ( would help in understanding and reading minutes)
Links to minutes
List of groups that get together – all members listed
Working area for documents to pass within the group
Who is part of the group
What’s going on with the group
Option of hidden files
Committees and Task Force information in one place
Include the discharged groups
- Budget information for all units
Required statistical information we always have to turn in and when it is "due"
Link to Institutional Research and Planning
Link to university fiscal rules and regulations
Fiscal regulations – UT System and UTA
Whom to call if something is wrong on the weekends or holidays or night (for facilities)
Timelines for projects and status reports on them
All library statistics in one place
- Status of printers and copiers. We get messages that they are being worked on, but put the status on the page so we can all know.
IT helpdesk
Keep the place to report technical problems –IT, DLS, IOP
All help desk access in one place – IT, DLC, IOP
All working tools and resources
Keep ability to report technical problems in one place
Add ability to know the status, and what was reported, not just that it is being worked on
- Library forms
Forms in one place
Forms all together and named logically
Travel forms
Add how to find city-to-city state airfares and other related state information
Forms, named what we call them
- Instant messaging
Instant messaging
Instant messaging: an easy way to see if people are at their desks without sending an email
Option of MyLibrary for internal library staff
Own set of tools and things useful to those individuals
Customizable for "me"
Acronyms list
Acronyms list
Link to Shorthorn
"Sticky notes" feature so you can leave yourself reminders and they come up when you log in
Place to put images so we could all share there for promotional materials
Purchased images and those we will share
A "weather thing" so we would know what the weather is like (from SEL in the basement)
"Copy heavily from the Brown site"
Instructions for how to put things on the intranet
Emergencies information
Box for emergency announcements
Emergency information
Instructions on what to do when the expert is gone, so others can keep things going
Be able to read the Chronicle without the library password
List of staff with special interests or abilities in languages and subject areas (cars, baseball, sports, etc.)
Stop sending out the monthly reports to everyone: post them on the intranet
Or even in a blog, so it is done more often
All monthly reports in one place
Easier access to staff on our web page
Some staff call in to Access Services and want to be connected to their supervisor, but do not know the extension number; students sometimes do not what department they work in. They want Access Services staff to take notes and contact their supervisors. If the names and extensions were on the Web this might not be a problem.
General observations about design, usability, and content development
Clear and obvious that you are in the staff web
"Happy and pleasant"
Dynamic, current, new every day
Make it a diversion in your day
Keep main page simple
Simple
Not frilly or busy
Link for library home page so we can get to it
Fun design: less academic
Make it pleasing, fun
Design and layout are very important
The layout and design will be very important.
Web page layout more like real life rather than lines of text
"easier to read" format – not long lists
Needs to load fast
Quick to load (from off campus, too)
"No flash and crap"
"All flash we can get"
Perhaps provide a "just text" click
No layers of graphics
No scrolling
Scroll bars to a minimum
Needs to be easy to get around
Easy to navigate
Finadability is important
Nothing more than 3 clicks away.
Never more than 3 clicks
Drop downs are annoying
I do not like the drop down menus
I love the drop down menus
Multiple ways of access
Ability to have it either way – two ways of finding things – by type of document and by department or unit
Personalization – is it a possibility?
Off campus access is essential
Not another logon
Must authenticate for off campus use
Can we integrate off campus access into the Outlook functions?
Have date and time, and day
Get rid of the circle thing
Need to come up with naming conventions
A to Z list of everything on it
Not as many things on one page (in talking about the current Staff Resources page)
Do not have tiny links. Need to be able to read them
Tired of lines
Intranet should have some things not open to the public or even to other library staff; access depending on need
Portions should be restricted to library staff
Must be able to do easy authoring. Must have options on how to contribute content
Developing the content, like the tutorials, and instructions becomes a productivity trade-off. Documentation takes time.
Links must be authoritative (not links to old servers)
Need to keep the site updated
Vendors merge and changes need to be made immediately as we find out
Who will keep it up?
Consider life span for documents so we don’t keep them forever
Keep only the most recent version
Must be searchable, itself
Search box for the intranet
Add a place for "wish list" for Intranet development
We need to clean up the Q drive to see what we have there.
Be able to search it
Consider implications of the Open Records Act and retention policies
Have we considered WebDAV (http://www.webdav.org/ ) ("Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning". It is a set of extensions to the HTTP protocol which allows users to collaboratively edit and manage files on remote web servers.)
Comment on existing staff suggestion box: modify it or remove it. It has become a complaint box and/or a place for public snipping
Comment of new bulletin board: everyone should be required to register, so there can be group pressure on whoever snipes, even if it is by the moderator
(Note: This comment was not from a focus group session. It was sent directly to Karen.)
My fantasy INTRANET:
Front page with 3 options:
Intranet (Professional)
Intranet (Practical)
Intranet (Special Human Interest)
Professional would give options geared more toward library development, resources and other professional forums.
Practical would give you options for everyday practical usage – How to… Forms… Policies…
Special Human Interest would give you options pertaining to personal forums. Library garden clubs… Fun field trips… Arts and entertainment openings or announcements… Fun stuff to remind us that we are a community not a bunch of employees!!!
Visually speaking, the intranet should be kept simple and un-internet like. I’m turned off of ‘another web page.’ I’d prefer simple to flashy. I’d rather even have less professional if it means SIMPLE!
Links to internet should be kept to a minimum and when you are able to link to one a window showing that you are still in the intranet could contain the internet link. Internet links should be in a different color or italics etc.
Intranet should be closed to the public to instill a feeling of intimacy with the page, for the staff.
Posted: March 25, 2005
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