It has always bothered me when a link to the library of a particular organization is not prominently featured on the home page of its website. This is particularly bothersome for educational institutions given the de facto role of the library as a centerpiece of learning. In fact when I browse the web or go directly to a known institution and do not see a prominent link to the library, this gives me a bad impression of that institution. In a previous job when I was responsible for library websites, the issue of placement for the link to the library was a battle that I had to fight with non-library campus IT folks, and fight fairly aggressively. In the campus website that existed when I came into that position, the link to the library was buried somewhere in a category for Academics, if I recall. Noone could find it. This, in spite of the fact that the library site was one of the most heavily used in the entire campus web structure. Fortunately after a campus website redesign, the link to the library was placed prominently on the home page for the institution.

So it was with a lot of interest that I read Steven Bell’s summary, posted to ACRLog, of a discussion on the COLLIB-L discussion list regarding this issue. One portion of Bell’s post particularly caught my attention:

Tom Kirk, library director at Earlham College, also brought up the value of examining web site data, but made the observation that data alone would hardly yield the information we need about student behavior in using institutional and library web sites. Until we do know more about how students use our web sites, Tom said, we may be unjustified in arguing for what belongs on a home page. As for alternatives, Tom suggested that many of our institutions have specialized portals for communicating with current students and faculty, where a more prominent library link could be placed. He also suggested that having the library under “academics” has “become a de facto standard alternative to a link on the home page?” So if they do move your library link from the home page to academics, don’t take it too badly.

This statement from Tom Kirk frankly astounds me, especially the part about having the library under “academics” being the “de facto standard.” Not true! And even if it is fairly common, I vehemently disagree that we should be satisfied with that! Furthermore, we should and often do have the data to back up the assertion that the link to the library belongs on the institution’s home page. And we should and do have data on how our students are using our sites. I would ask the question, are other campus wide sites being asked to adhere to this same requirement? Maybe, but in many cases, I doubt it, based upon personal experience.

One more point I’d make is that the library is not just for students, it’s for the whole institution including faculty, staff, and alumni. Even more than that, it is for the broader worldwide academic community. In other words, library websites, especially for educational institutions, have a worldwide audience and this is often overlooked. I mention this because one of the arguments I faced when in charge of library websites was to keep the library websites publicly available versus putting them behind a firewall and accessible only via an intranet. The argument for this restriction (made by non-library IT people) was that library resources and information was only for existing students, faculty, and staff, so therefore it needn’t be available to anyone else. Of course this is true when we think of licensed e-resources but this approach would make the library’s online catalog and other freely available resources invisible to anyone else.

I am not arguing that the library website deserves high visibility “just because.” But I find it troubling that the library’s online presence needs to be defended so often, and that there is frequently an assumption that the link to the library should be buried somewhere within an institution’s site.