We are super excited to announce the unveiling of our brand new and improved Boley Law Library website. We think you're really going to like it.
The changes are far from skin deep. We had a number of goals for our new site and think the redesign will be a great help to our students, faculty, staff, alumni and the many researchers the world over who start their research at Boley.
Get What You Want, Quickly We loved our old site, but one of the chief frustrations with it was how difficult it was to find what you need. Our new site was designed with the core goal of making it easy to get legal researchers to the materials you need. Here's what we did: 1. Right up front we placed links to the most sought after info on our site:
Find will get you quick answers when you are looking for a particular item such as an article, a book, an exam, a database, etc.
Research gets you to one of our specialized legal research starting places, whether you are researching a topic (Environmental Law, Indian Law, International Law, etc.) or need to dive into an type of legal research material (Statutes, Regulations, Cases, International Law, and Oregon Law).
Get Help is where to go when you have a question or need assistance. Here you'll find out how to ask a librarian, get a research guide, and track down one of our growing "How Do I..." pages.
2. Drop-down navigation menus on every page:
These will get you quick access from any page to all of those same Find, Research and Get Help resources, as well as to library info and services for students, faculty/staff, alum and public via the about menu, and quick access to the LC Law School site.
3. Quick access to the catalog, article finder, and website via our search box:
4. Quicklinks menu on every page takes you right to our most popular resources and databases:
Readability & Simplification We knew going in that a big part of increasing the usability of our site was making it more readable and easy to use. We changed the font, increased the text size, made buttons larger, and added much more white space. Basically, we cleaned it up so that your focus could be on the resources, not the design.
Mobile This site was built from the ground up to work perfectly on mobile devices and small screen displays. We know that over time that's how most of you will be using our site. So our developer Jeff Allman toiled long and hard making sure this site would adopt to your devices, not the other way around.
It is designed using the methods of Responsive Web Design, which can best be described as "One site for every screen." Unlike many websites, we do not need to create multiple mobile versions or apps to get you the info you need. Rather, one site that is designed to adapt to the size device you have. Give it a try on your phone or iPad and let us know how it works.
Flexible We started from scratch on this baby, installing a whole new content management system (CMS), Drupal, that will allow us the flexibility to expand the site in imaginative ways.
Drupal is a free and open source CMS that is probably them most popular such system in the world. Used by thousands of websites around the world, including this small indie site, it brings with it a large community support structure with thousands of modules to fit our needs. Importantly, it helps ensure that we create fully accessible pages. We will be able to rely on this system for years to come without worrying about service contracts, fees, or becoming obsolete.
Expansion Plans Thanks to rebuilding from the ground up using Drupal and responsive design, we can look forward to providing many expansive new services in the future. Plans and possibilities include:
- Embed LC Webcasts into our site
- Easily create course and training pages and sites on the fly
- Incorporate screencasts and training resources into subject pages
- Provide virtual reference
- Expand database info and findability (we've already started this one - check it out here once the new site is live)
- Expand and incorporate our digital collections and law reviews
- Much more. We're just getting started here folks
Tell Us What You Think Go ahead and check out our new site once it goes live. Try some real problems with it, explore, and then let us know what you think. Use our handy feedback form talk to your friendly local Law Librarian, or contact Rob Truman directly at rtruman@lclark.edu or 503-768-6780.
Credit Where It's Due This new site took a ton of brains and brawn getting designed, installed, and set up. Most of the work was done by our ace Digital Resources Coordinator Jeff Allman (the guy in the glasses), who put in months of effort and weathered many re-design requests.
Much credit and appreciation are also due law student and librarian Tricia Juettemeyer, who spent a good part of her summer working on design issues and doing much of the hard work in transferring our old site's info into the new CMS. Thanks to both Jeff and Tricia.