There's this thing: http://influx.us/onepager

But I don't really believe in it.

I know the library world is full of people that think that we're unique
snowflakes, but at least in my case (for library websites) I find that to be
true.  This is based on a number of factors: how librarians instruct
patrons, analytics data, faculty database preferences.

I look at some academic library websites and see the things that they
highlight and I know that our patrons here have zero interest in that.

In fact, our new website (beta heresies:
http://testsh.mse.jhu.edu/newwebsite) is minimizing the amount of content as
much as possible. Instructional content is in LibGuides, databases are in
Xerxes/metalib, catalog is Blacklight.  There's really no reason for us to
pull our users deeper into the site when everything they want is somewhere
else. The website will then become a facilitator rather than a collector.
That's the approach that's going to work for us; I can see a number of
institutions where that would be horrifying and wrong.

Collect some data (clicktracking data in particular) and find out where your
users are going and what content is being used. Design around that.

-Sean


On 5/10/12 5:41 PM, "Patrick Berry" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> So, there are a gajillion and one design pattern libraries out there...has
> anybody come across a set of design patterns focused on library web sites?
> 
> Thanks,
> Pat