WST Minutes

Date: November 22, 1999

Location: Helm 108

Members Present: Bryan Carson, Deana Groves, Jonathan D. Jeffrey, Rosemary Meszaros, Donna Parker, Sandy Staebell, and Haiwang Yuan

1. Haiwang made the following announcement:
   • Web Site Team (hereafter WST) has purchased three copies of Macromedia Dreamweaver, a visual HTML editor, two for Windows platform and one for Mac.
   • WST is purchasing Adobe Acrobat, a PDF file converter, in the hope of cutting down UL paper consumption.
   • WST has purchased a search engine service from Atomz.com for the UL web site.
   • Haiwang is in the process of hiring two 15-hour students, one of whom will work in the Kentucky Building under Sandy Staebell's supervision.
2. Haiwang gave a briefing on his Dreamweaver hands-on training.
3. The WST decided that Haiwang will give an overview of this web editor to whoever is interested from our Libraries & Museum. A hands-on training session is being scheduled for the WST members next week.
4. Haiwang demonstrated the WST's public forum on the Internet named www.library.web. WST will use it for outside meeting discussions and welcome UL colleagues to participate or "sit in".
5. WST made changes to the UL web publishing policies, procedures and guidelines and asked Haiwang to present them to the CLDH for review and the Dean for approval.
6. WST went through the not yet finished and planned projects that included Helm-Cravens Art Exhibit page, Subject-oriented Pathfinders and KERA index page.
7. WST kicked off the redesigning UL departmental web pages by examining both the UL page designs and some design ideas derived from the Internet. The following decisions are made as a result:
   • Improvement on the front (home) page will be focused on making it less busy without surprising deviation from its current design.
   • Offer an alternative to users who prefer an interface other than drop-down menus. (In fact, a "text only" version of the UL home page has just been created and can be accessed by clicking on the "Text only" link on the UL home page.)
   • All departmental pages will have a consistent appearance and navigation
   • The current heavy set, dark colored buttons on the top of each page will be replaced by lighter colored button-like texts, to be modeled after but not copied from the Adobe Acrobat web pages.
   • WST encourages area librarians to oversee the content of departmental and area pages. WST will be responsible for designing and maintaining them. That will include keep them accurate by proofreading and up-to-date by checking the links.
   • WST proposed that a timesaving software that will automatically check links be employed.
8. Next meeting is being scheduled for next week as hands-on training on Dreamweaver.
9. The UL Web Publishing Policies, Procedures and Guidelines will be finalized by the end of this week through discussion on the wku.library.web public forum.

For the Team, Bryan Carson and Haiwang Yuan