ALA’s Website: How it got that way and what we’re doing about it
I use it daily, searching it, clicking through the links, as I have for over a decade. And each day 45,000 others do, too. We go to www.ala.org because it is a rich site, with the collective work of the Association represented. We sometimes complain that you need to know where to look to find anything, that it grows with neither structure nor direction. And that is what has been happening with the ALA website since its inception almost 13 years ago–but our current usability work is an effort to change our ways. Some background.
The American Library Association has participated in electronic dissemination of information since the mid-1980s when the Association introduced an e-mail service, ALANET, to its members. Beginning in 1985, the ALA Washington Office has published its e-newsletter, ALAWON, migrating the service from ALANET to other e-mail services over the decades.
ALA began its “new” electronic era in the 1988-89 fiscal year, when several staff were provided “bitnet” accounts, courtesy of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). On May 13, 1991, the first subscription-based electronic list–ALCTS Network News (AN2)–was launched. More accounts and many more e-lists followed.
ALA launched its Gopher, using the server at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) in July 1994 (the March 1995 American Libraries has a review of the Gopher). In April 1995, ALA moved to the web, also through UIC, and its own domain name, www.ala.org.
The basis for the home page was a fact sheet from our Public Information Office about ALA, with links out to (mostly) gopher directories. That first “homely page” was scrawny and text heavy, but it worked.
On March 21, 1996, ALA moved to its own server, and began the process of migrating the material on the Gopher to the web site, www.ala.org. All units were provided “space” on the Gopher … and the web. Thus, the first representation of the Association on the web was as a reflection of our organization, with its central policy body Council, an array of committees, eleven divisions, round tables, affiliates, and chapters.
From the start, each of the units has been responsible for its own space, resulting different ways of presenting parallel information (such as the committee volunteer process), different types of material, etc. The spaces have become increasingly sophisticated as units have gained expertise in web presentation of material of interest to our members, prospective members, and others who have an interest in the mission of the ALA.
The ALA web server, software, and support is funded by the general ALA budget, with much of the developmental support coming from individual unit funds (for the staff involved in preparing the web pages or for outside contractors hired). In some cases, members directly support the web development as part of their volunteer work for the Association when they prepare pages–or even maintain whole linked websites. The ALA website–with its 60,000+ pages–is continuously updated by the 100+ content developers.
The ALA Website Advisory Committee has general oversight responsibility for ALA’s web presence, there is an internal staff team to do major developmental work and technical maintenance, and a staff Website Editorial Board to work with units on some overarching content issues. In general, though, content maintenance is the responsibility of all those diverse web developers, many on staff, others volunteers from among our membership.
Over the past year or so, we’ve been migrating from one content management system to another, unit by unit. Beginning March 10, there will be the final push to complete the conversion–and resolve broken links, missing files, etc. Some of the pages in this final push are the top level pages–contact the ALA Library (library@ala.org) if you need help with something during this transition.
Also, beginning in the summer of 2006, we’ve been conducting a usability analysis with numerous surveys, focus groups, and other forms of data gathering. During the Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia, we gathered input on the graphic design, and right now there’s a survey sent to a random sample of the ALA membership to gather data on the information architecture for the site . We’re hoping the next generation of the ALA web site will be in place before we meet in Anaheim!
Karen