New Look on Ball State University Libraries’ Home Page

The University Libraries unveiled a new homepage on April 4

Designed by the Libraries’ Web Development Working Group (WDWG), this new page joins the Student Virtual Library Student Virtual Library as an important gateway to the resources accessible through the University Libraries.

When designing this new homepage, the Web Development Working Group sought to allow users to quickly find desired resources and to facilitate independent use of information.

One method used to fulfill these goals was to categorize links and options into six main groups for easy navigation. They are
Find …
Library Services
Research Assistance
About the Libraries
Libraries/Collections
News Gallery

A column on the left side of the homepage includes commonly used library links, which will appear on every University Libraries web page.

The homepage will continue to improve as the WDWG conducts usability tests against the new page and also incorporates comments and suggestions from students, faculty, and staff. One future development will be adding a search box, which will allow users to launch different searches directly from the homepage.

Members of the Web Development Working Group are Jim Bradley, Katie Bohnert, Hilde Calvert, Stacy Chaney, Steve Duecker, Randy Lewandowski, Matthew Shaw, and chairperson Daniel Hartwig. Brad Faust provided additional leadership.

The web site is

For information, contact Kathryn Bohnert, Library Enterprise Services & Systems Support Analyst, KBohnert@bsu.edu or (765) 285-8032.

This story was published in The Library Insider April 2006, pg. 8.