We’re looking at ways of making it easier for our users to a) find out how they can and b) recommend information resources for the Library needed for UC learning, teaching and research.

A number of frustrations with the current Recommend an item for the Library pages on our website have been expressed. Some suggestions for improvements include:

• Looking at ways of making the Recommend link easier to find
• Simplifying the pages by taking out unnecessary information
• Reducing the number of steps involved in making recommendations
• Make it clearer how to do/what’s involved in making a recommendation
• Indicating the broad range of options that are available for providing access (short term eBook loans, single article purchasing)

I’ve had an initial go at re-drafting a possibility but there’s still plenty of room for improvement.  Comments and suggestions most welcome.  You might like to have a look at around at other libraries forms.  I quite liked Victoria’s as an alternate option – a single form combining both books and journals. If you’ve got any ideas or seen any good models out there – add a comment or drop me a line.

We’re also looking at ways of improving the tone of these pages and making them sound more friendly.

Let me know if any changes would affect you or your area. I will also bring this up for discussion in various for a including the group looking at the Information Resources Policy, Academic Liaison collection management portfolio and Datasets.

Tim Stedman