#map library

We just finished our third LibGuide design meeting [3 hrs including writeup]. We spent much of the time discussing process and firmed up a number of action items for each of us to accomplish in the next two weeks.  Chris agreed to review the "Our Aerial Photographs" page on the current guide, and make updates to the Maps BETA page within a week's time.  Meanwhile, I will be figuring out how to update the digital materials page.  How easy, for example, is it to transfer material that is currently on another LibGuide? Over the weekend of November 3 & 4, I will be rearranging things on Maps BETA until we have a pretty good template for the "Finding Online Maps" guide. This may include borrowing from Kent State University's version.

I will also suggest a process for updating the maps website as a whole.

Our first LibGuide design meeting took place September 18th. 

For today's meeting, I prepared a printout of the entire guide, along with a cover page that could serve as an overview of its organization.  Then in preparation for our meeting I also reviewed some of other map library sites, including those at Penn State and at Dartmouth University, to see if there might be organizational or content elements that we could easily adopt.  Finally I dropped by Chris' office with the printout so that he would have time that afternoon and the following morning to gather his thoughts - 6 hours prep time total.

During the 1 hour meeting, we discussed our ideas for reorganization.  Chris felt it would be important to use the entrance page to direct users to the online materials, since it would make sense that these might be the most popular features.  As we navigated the site together, Chris indicated that the most popular link on the site was the link to "Popular Maps for Long Island Research."  This page, which hasn't been updated in over ten years, is the first choice on the pull-down under Finding Maps.