Category Archives: PicsNo

Responsive Design Sites: Higher Ed, Libraries, Notables

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[Note: The original introductory paragraph is now at the bottom of the list]

Disclaimers: With Responsive Design becoming increasingly popular, I don’t make any claims for this being a complete list (I AM happy to add new sites, so send them along). Also, the list is biased toward sites that are closest to home for me – Libaries (especially medical libraries) and Univ of Iowa. [Updated 4.13]

Higher Ed

Other Library Related

Non-Profits

Other notable Responsive Design sites

Other Lists

If you have additions, please tell me on Twitter (@ericrumsey).

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Original introductory paragraph:

Responsive Design (RWD) is a new way to make web pages look good on any size screen, from mobile to desktop. To see how it works, go to any of the sites below, and squeeze the window to see how it looks on mobile. See screenshots in Karine Joly’s good article on higher ed RWD sites, which is the kernel from which this list started. Academic library RWD sites are now integrated in with the general Higher Ed list.

Eric Rumsey is at: eric-rumsey AttSign uiowa dott edu and on Twitter @ericrumsey

Google Dethrones the Alphabetical List

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Before Google, search engine builders thought that the way to organize the Internet was like an index, or, to use the term that was popular at the time, a directory — A giant list of every link on the Internet. Librarians saw a place on this wave also, as Steve Coffman wrote recently:

Remember those heady early days when we thought we were going to catalog the web? …  Almost every library felt the responsibility to stuff its website with long and often elaborately annotated lists of web resources for just about everything.

As Matthew Reidsma says, the list-making urge is still much in evidence on library websites:

Libraries love links so much that most [library websites] look like spam link farms, designed to trick Google. Every other successful website on the planet gave that up in the late ’90s, but not libraries. We librarians like to see a big list of resources because it makes us seem more relevant.

As Reidsma has discussed in other works, the problem with the prevalence of link lists on library websites is that users ignore them, and don’t find the really important things on the website … or they just go to Google.

Why do users find library lists so unappealing? Neither of the commentators quoted above, nor anyone else that I’ve seen, has written about it, but the obvious answer, I think, may be … Alphabetical Order — Invariably lists of links on library sites are alphabetical — In the days of PageRank, how boring!

The “I’m Feeling Lucky” PageRank Revolution

Before Google, the only rational way to organize a long list of links on the same subject was alphabetical order. It’s almost hard to imagine back to those days, and to realize what a revolution Google’s PageRank was. It seemed like magic that Google gave us automatic lists of links, with the best ones at the top of the list. James Gleick wrote about this recently, in a retrospective look at the Age of Google [boldface added]:

PageRank is one of those ideas that seem obvious after the fact. But the business of Internet search, young as it was, had fallen into some rigid orthodoxies. … People naturally thought of existing technologies for organizing the world’s information, and these were found in encyclopedias and dictionaries. They could see that alphabetical order was about to become less important, but they were slow to appreciate how dynamic and ungraspable their target, the Internet, really was.

With this great new invention of PageRank, people soon came to assume that any list of resources worth looking at would, of course, have the best links at the top of the list. If they encountered an alphabetical list, their eyes would glass over. So, with most long link-lists on library sites being in alphabetic order, is it any wonder that they’re not very popular with users?

So what can libraries do? As Reidsma has been saying recently, we need to look at our websites like our users do, and change them to fit users’ needs — He says from his work with users surveys that this means greatly simplifying library websites. Link lists should be short, with someone’s idea of the “best” links at the top. As I’ve learned with my work on Hardin MD, no matter how long the list of links is, only the top 2-3 will get many clicks.

The emphasis on simplifying our websites, of course, fits very well with the mobile revolution. The small screens of mobile devices beg for small, simple web pages, and trimming our lists is a great place to start.

Eric Rumsey is at: eric-rumsey AttSign uiowa dott edu and on Twitter @ericrumsey

Improve Your Library Website with Responsive Design

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Matthew Reidsma gave a presentation recently with the provocative title Your Library Website Stinks and it’s Your Fault [abstract]. In combination with that, he also wrote an article on the same theme, Bad Library Websites are just a Symptom. I’ll mention briefly some of the points that he made, but the main idea I want to stress here is that Reidsma has an answer to the problems he details with library websites, namely Responsive Design.

Reidsma’s predominant theme is that the way to build good websites, including library websites, is to listen to our users. Users think differently from us, so we need to spend a lot of time doing usability studies of our web pages. From usability studies at his library, Reidsma says that the overriding lesson he’s learned is that users want simple web pages — A big, fat, Google-like search box, with just a few good links.

Responsive Design

Serendipitously, about the same time I came across Reidsma’s ideas on library websites, I was reading about Responsive Web Design (RWD), a recently innovated way to make web pages so that they look good on any size screen, from smartphone to desktop. This requires that the basic page contents be fairly simple, and goes along with the “mobile first” idea that pages should be designed first for small-screen viewing.

I was becoming interested in RWD especially because our library is working on implementing it. So I was looking around to see if any other libraries were doing it, and, low and behold, the only other one I found was Reidsma’s library (actually a sub-section of it).

Interestingly (and surprisingly), Reidsma has not written anything about RWD, but he will talking about it at a work shop on it at ALA-LITA this summer. It fits in well with his ideas about library website design, and it will be interesting to see how he combines the ideas in his session in Anaheim.

Reidsma’s push for simple design on library websites goes along with the current mobile-first-RWD emphasis of modern less is more web design, that’s come with the Mobile Revolution. This is captured well in an article about designer Luke Wroblewski:

Wroblewski thinks the hard choices required to prune all but the most important features make for stronger sites. And, indeed, after they go through the mobile development process, companies often find that their desktop site looks busy, clunky and old by comparison.

What works for the dotcom companies of Wroblewski’s world can also work to the benefit of libraries. Actually, libraries have the great advantage over dotcoms that we don’t have to worry about where to put the ads squeezed out by mobile-minimalist design!

Matthew Reidsma’s Twitter – @mreidsma

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Eric Rumsey is at: eric-rumsey AttSign uiowa dott edu and on Twitter @ericrumsey

“Using Google to Hook Students” on Library Resources

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The Twitterverse has been abuzz with chatter about Steve Kolowich’s recent article, What students don’t know. This reports on a study of Illinois college libraries showing students ignorance of library resources, and their love of Google — Nothing new, but the report states the issue so clearly that it’s drawn much attention.

In reaction to this, Paige Jaeger has a good article suggesting that we in libraries should not dwell on the problems, but instead work on the solutions — Students are going to use Google — We should live with it,  and go from there:

Teach students to search Google, even if you don’t like it. …. If students are swimming in Google, we have to throw them a life preserver.

Jaeger cites articles that have specific ideas on how to leverage students’ Google proclivities to teach them about library resources. One by Paul Barron especially catches my attention — Teach students how to do the best possible job in Google, and then show them how much better they can do with library resources:

Using Google to Hook Students

Educators know that libraries provide access to more relevant information sources and that there are specialists in libraries who enjoy helping students with their research projects. The challenge is influencing the students to use the resources.

Students’ preference to begin their research with Google provides opportunities for educators to integrate the databases hosted in the school library into their research. After teaching a student to use the advanced search features in Google, educators can show how, with minimal modifications, Google’s advanced search syntaxes are similar to the features provided by the library’s proprietary databases. After teaching students to search using Google’s advanced search options, an effective leading question is to ask the student, “Would you like me to teach you a search method that saves you time, provides more relevant resources, and that will improve the quality of your research and earn you a higher grade?”

This approach works! Lori Donovan, a teacher-librarian at Thomas Dale High School from Chester, Va., noted: “I revised my lesson plan for teaching students how to search the Web and library databases. Students were frustrated using the Web; when we got to Gale and ABC-CLIO, their amazement in the difference of the quality of information was priceless. One student researching working women of the 1930s said, ‘Google is aggravating; I found much more in Student Resource Center.’”

Eric Rumsey is at: eric-rumsey AttSign uiowa dott edu and on Twitter @ericrumsey

Linear eBooks & Non-Linear eTextBooks

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As I wrote last week, most current eBooks are linear books — Generally fiction, with some narrative non-fiction. As I was reading about that, I came across the BioBooks project, well-described in the title of the article on it that’s excerpted below: “Reinventing the College Textbook: A digital textbook project that uses a non-linear approach to learning.”

The BioBooks project is being done at Wake Forest University, by physicist Jed Macosko and biologist Dan Johnson. Macosko is interviewed by Campus Technology writer Bridget McCrea (boldface added):

Macosko: We tested out the idea of using an iPad as a textbook and then went further by making the information non-linear. Instead of going from chapter to chapter, students get to choose their own “adventure.” That’s how the BioBook was born.

McCrea: What’s the significance of non-linear books?

Macosko: Dan has spent a lot of time studying learning theory and is a neurologist himself. He understands the way the brain works. It has been shown that humans learn best when they can put facts into the order that makes the best sense to them. (more)

I’ve written before about other types of books that don’t fit into the current linear model of eBooks — Reference books and childrens’ books, as discussed by Dominique Raccah; and cookbooks, travel guides, and encyclopedias, discussed by Jakob Nielsen and Paul Biba. To that list, then, textbooks are another addition, and one whose lucrative market is likely to bring much BioBooks-like experimentation soon. As with BioBooks, much of this future development will certainly be on iPads or other tablets.

Eric Rumsey is at: eric-rumsey AttSign uiowa dott edu and on Twitter @ericrumsey

What’s Selling in eBooks is Linear Books

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Interesting thoughts from Dominique Raccah, at Sourcebooks publishing, on what makes a successful eBook. In the current market, with the current technology, she says it’s mostly fiction, and some narrataive non-fiction:

What’s selling in ebooks? It’s primarily narrative … Stories seem to be at the heart of eBooks right now. Even the successful non-fiction eBooks we’re seeing skew to narrative – memoirs and biography and history. They’re all stories – and they’re all linear reading experiences. [more]

And, from Raccah’s experience at Sourcebooks, what doesn’t work in eBooks is Reference and Childrens’ books, which are notably non-linear reading experiences:

Reference is the biggest category of non-fiction and our experience at Sourcebooks is that reference is … the hardest category to get right in eBooks. At Sourcebooks, reference is highly formatted: lots of subsections, sidebars, pictures, diagrams, pull-quotes, etc. It’s highly “browseable,” “dippable,” not necessarily a linear reading experience. All the things that we put in to make the book more experiential as a printed book are the very things that are harder to replicate as an experience in an eBook. And there are so many different kinds of reference books.

The other difficult transformation area right now is children’s books (as distinct from young adult books). E-tailers’ bestsellers lists, publisher-reported data, and our own data are not suggesting strong conversion to eBooks yet for juvenile books, outside of cross-over YA. [more]

Raccah’s comments echo the ideas of Jakob Nielsen and Paul Biba, who also decry the domination of eBooks by the linear book metaphor. They note particularly the poor fit of the linear book model for cookbooks, travel guides, and encyclopedias.

Eric Rumsey is at: eric-rumsey AttSign uiowa dott edu and on Twitter @ericrumsey

NLM to Google: Please Ignore Us … SEO NOT!

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As I’ve discussed previously, much of the strangeness of the PubMed Health-NLM-Google affair arises because NLM doesn’t seem to have an appreciation of search engine optimization (SEO), and the value of being ranked in Google.

Another aspect of this misunderstanding that came out during the NLM presentation at the recent MLA annual meeting, is that NLM is frustrated (!) that PubMed Health pages are getting a top ranking in Google because they consider the new resource to be in an uncompleted, “pre-alpha” state. Bafflingly, they apparently didn’t anticipate that Google would find the PMH pages until they were “ready.”

To anyone in the dotcom world, getting a high ranking in Google is invaluable — The Ultimate Goal, The End of the Rainbow. To them, the idea that NLM would not be celebrating (!) a high Google ranking would be hard to fathom.

I realize that government websites like NLM don’t have the nimbleness of dotcom sites, so they have trouble adapting to unexpected happenings. But, still, it’s interesting, I think, to ask how a dotcom site would handle the current PubMed-Google situation …

What would a dotcom do if they had a new site that was under development, not ready to be used by the public, and it suddenly and unexpectedly started getting high rankings in Google? I think if this happened a dotcom would drop everything else and get the site in a finished state as quickly as possible. And while they were working on this, they would inform users about their progress in getting it finished.

NLM’s response to getting a top Google ranking has been very different — From all appearances, they have done nothing different at all because of the high ranking. They are working at a slow pace to implement the new site, on some pages, but they have done nothing to inform users about their progress, and when implementation will be completed.

Beyond NLM – Building Library Discoverability with Google & SEO

My point here is not to be hypercritical of NLM. It’s rather to use NLM as an example of a more general problem in libraries. As I’ve discussed before, I think libraries should be more aware of the effect of SEO and Google on how our users find our sites.

What’s unfortunate about NLM’s reaction to Google’s ranking of PMH is that it almost appears as if they really don’t care whether users find their PMH pages or not — The pages are certainly going to be found and used more if they get a high ranking in Google, so NLM should rejoice, instead of grousing about Google finding them.

So I say the same thing to libraries in general that I say to NLM — We have good stuff! Let’s help our users find it! Taking advantage of Google and the principles of SEO to help us do this doesn’t mean we’re “in it for the money” — It just means we want to make our resources more discoverable for our users!

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Eric Rumsey is at: eric-rumsey AttSign uiowa dott edu and on Twitter @ericrumsey

PubMed Health, Google & NLM: The Mystery Continues

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PubMed Health (PMH) was launched early this year by the National Library of Medicine. As discussed in previous articles, NLM has said very little about this new resource, so I and other medical librarians were hoping that they would clear up some of the mystery surrounding it at the Medical Library Association annual meeting in May. In this article, I’ll report on what NLM sources said about PMH at MLA, which, unfortunately, was not very much.

There were two sessions at MLA where NLM had an opportunity to discuss PMH. The first one was the NLM Online Users’ Meeting, at 7 AM on Monday, which was attended by about 50-75 people. NLM staff presenting at this session were Loren Frant, who talked about Medline Plus, and David Gillikin, who talked about other NLM initiatives. Neither one of the presenters mentioned PMH (see the MLA blog for what was discussed). In the question/answer period afterward, I asked Gillikin about PMH. He acknowledged its existence, but said very little else. He said that NLM Deputy Director Betsy Humphries would talk more about it on Tuesday at the NLM Update “plenary” session.

After the NLM Users’ session I talked more to Gillikin, about NLM’s silence regarding the high Google ranking of PMH, and the controversial claim of NLM-Google collusion that has arisen from that. He indicated that the current version that’s available online is essentially a “beta version,” and that eventually PMH will have a strong emphasis on providing comparative effectiveness information for consumers and healthcare personnel. Gillikin expressed frustration that Google had given PMH pages a high ranking when it was not really in a completed state. When I pushed for him to say why NLM had not anticipated this, he said, frustratedly, “Google is a black box” — Indicating that apparently NLM has had no communication with Google about the high PMH rankings in Google searches. For the record — NLM Associate Director Sheldon Kotzin was also present at this session, although he was not a presenter. The only input he had on PMH was to confirm that there would be more information about it from Humphries at the Tuesday session.

So the stage was set for Humphries at the NLM Update on Tuesday. Although attendance at Monday’s early-bird session was small, word had gotten out, helped along by tweets, that Humphries would have more to say. Here’s the account by conference blogger Alison Aldrich on Humphries’ talk at the NLM Update:

Next came the moment many of us have been wondering about for a long time. What would NLM have to say about PubMed Health, this mysterious new site with such high prominence in Google Search results? In truth, they don’t have much to say… yet. We know its purpose is to provide health consumers with better access to systematic reviews and comparative effectiveness research. We also now know that Google released it in pre-alpha form long before NLM was ready for that to happen. [ER: See my comments on this last sentence below.]

Hopes for more information were thoroughly dashed, then — Humphries talked for less than a minute about PMH, repeating what had been said on Monday. Of the high Google ranking, she said it was a surprise for everyone at NLM, but she said nothing about why NLM has been so silent about this, or why they have not had more to say about the nature of PMH. I waited expectantly until the end of her presentation with the many questions I (and no doubt many others) have about this whole affair, but to no avail — Humphries and the other presenters took NO QUESTIONS!

The Pot calls the Kettle a Black Box?

How ironic that Gillikin called Google a Black Box when NLM itself is being so mysterious! Here was the perfect opportunity to explain their actions in the Google affair to a friendly audience, and they said nothing to answer the obvious questions:

  • Why did NLM release PubMed Health before it was ready for public use, in “pre-alpha stage”? The conference blog report says that “Google released it in pre-alpha form,” but it was not Google that “released it,” it was NLM.
  • There is certainly a precedent for Google putting NLM pages at the top of its ranking for health/disease related searches, with Google Health One Box, so why did NLM not think about the possibility of this happening with PubMed Health?
  • And finally, the most basic question (in two parts) — Does NLM care what the world thinks? Do they care that there is a blog article which is getting high rankings in Google that suggests that NLM is conspiring with the CIA? If they do care, why are they not saying something to clarify the situation? …
  • A subset of whether NLM cares — Do they care what MLA people on Twitter think? Twitter was heavily-used at MLA this year — I and several other conference attenders tweeted throughout the meeting about PubMed Health, with no response from NLM. It seems like it would be a good idea for NLM to have someone communicating on Twitter!

Since the events at MLA reported above happened in May, I’ve found that NLM does seem to be making some slow progress in adding comparative effectiveness information to PMH. It’s unclear how much this happened before MLA, and how much since. If it was happening before MLA, it’s surprising that NLM didn’t talk about it. If it has been happening more since MLA, maybe NLM was motivated by the widespread puzzlement about PMH expressed at MLA. Whichever the case may be, NLM still has a long way to go in clearing up the continuing mystery of PubMed Health.

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Eric Rumsey is at: eric-rumsey AttSign uiowa dott edu and on Twitter @ericrumsey

Wikipedia vs Medpedia: The Crowd beats the Experts

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In his keynote talk at the recent Medical Library Association annual meeting, Clay Shirky told the story of how Wikipedia, which is done by volunteers, has far surpassed the Medpedia project, which was founded in 2009 as an expert-doctor-produced system to compete with Wikipedia. Marcus Banks’s write-up of Shirky’s talk has a good segment on this:

Skirky contrasted the entry for biopsy on Wikipedia to that for biopsy on Medpedia, which utilizes physician editors rather than the unwashed masses.  Turns out that the Wikipedia entry is much more robust and developed, a thorough introduction to the topic of biopsy available to all. On the other hand, Medpedia offers a puny paragraph and calls it a day.

In fairness, Shirky does exaggerate the contrast a bit, in not mentioning that the Medpedia article has links to five specific types of biopsy. But those other articles are relatively short, and Shirky is right that the total amount of information in Wikipedia far exceeds Medpedia. So he’s certainly correct that Wikipedia has won the battle for the general medical online information market. Searching PubMed shows it: A search for wikipedia retrieves 83 articles; a search for medpedia retrieves 0 (zero!) articles. So, indeed, Medpedia has just never caught on.

Bertalan Meskó: “I believe elitism kills content”

Shirky said in his MLA talk that he had predicted when Medpedia launched that it would be a failure (confirmed here). He also mentioned that other commentators had similar questions about the purpose of Medpedia. One of those was the prominent Hungarian physician-blogger Bertalan Meskó (@berci). He’s a Wikipedia administrator, and echoes the sentiments of Shirky in questioning the need for Medpedia at the time of its launch in 2009 (boldface added):

When we have a Wikipedia, why do we need a Medpedia? … [do] we need Medpedia to provide reliable medical content? That’s what we are working on in Wikipedia. … I believe elitism kills content. Only the power of masses controlled by well-designed editing guidelines can lead to a comprehensive encyclopaedia.

Finally, a recently-published article gives more evidence for Wikipedia’s supremacy as the king of the medical information hill – Wikipedia: A Key Tool for Global Public Health Promotion, in Journal of Medical Internet Research (2011) is written by a group of Wikipedia medical administrators (including Meskó). The authors document the important place of Wikipedia in the online health information sphere, and make an appeal for more people with medical interests to participate as Wikipedia editors. Tellingly, the corresponding author, Michaël R Laurent, has an association with Medpedia — Apparently, from his leadership in Wikipedia, though, he’s decided it’s a better way to go than Medpedia.

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Eric Rumsey is at: eric-rumsey AttSign uiowa dott edu and on Twitter @ericrumsey

How Good Will eBooks Become? Try the Kindle App

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An article by Ezra Klein in the Washington Post caught my attention because Klein has caught on to the elegance of the Kindle app, especially its synched uploading of highlights and notes, that I’ve written about. I have found few other people who are talking about what a game-changing capability this is, so Klein’s giving it such an important place in his discussion of the potential of eBooks stands out (boldface added):

I don’t think we have any clear concept of how good eBooks are going to become. I wasn’t at all impressed with the first generation of eBooks, or eBook readers. When asked to review the first-generation Kindle, I reviewed it poorly and sold my device as soon as I’d finished the article. But now? I have the Kindle application on my home computer, my work computer, my iPad, and my phone. Wherever I am, my books are there, too. My place is always saved. My highlights and notes are automatically uploaded to a central Amazon server that I can access from any internet connection. I get more out of my books now, can read them in more places, can search back through them with more ease, can integrate them into my job with less hassle.

Klein doesn’t mention the Amazon tablet that’s been widely predicted to be coming out sometime in the next several months. Amazon’s dominance of eBook content combined with a strong tablet rival to Apple’s iPad, and leadership in “The Cloud” would put Amazon in a strong place in the eBook market.

Surprisingly, in the talk I’ve seen about the presumed Amazon tablet, it hasn’t been connected to the existing Kindle app. But the elegant tricks that Amazon has bundled with the Kindle app will certainly be carried over to the tablet. So if you want to see the future of eBooks, try out the Kindle App on your PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, or Android Phone.

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Eric Rumsey is at: eric-rumsey AttSign uiowa dott edu and on Twitter @ericrumsey