New ALA Web Site Frustrates Users
Slow speed, error messages have ALA staff scrambling to fix problems
Walter Minkel -- School Library Journal, 5/1/2003
Users of ALA's new site, unveiled on April 7, also claim that the long URLs of many frequently used pages are virtually impossible to remember, making it difficult to access many popular pages. For example, an attempt to visit the Newbery Medal home page initially resulted in an error message, but by April 11, the problem was resolved. ALA planned to make changes to the search function throughout April to make it faster and more accurate, says Bernadette Murphy, a communications specialist at ALA's Washington office.
Mary Ghikas, senior associate executive director of ALA's Washington office, says the problems are typical for a relaunch, particularly for an immense 400,000-page Web site that receives 170,000 hits a day. "We've moved a huge site from a static site to a dynamic database," says Ghikas, adding that many of the problems will be resolved as users get acclimated to the new design and ALA Web-site staff tweak it.
Nevertheless, the site sends a bad message. "[Librarians] should be setting the gold standard for organization and access to information," says Karen G. Schneider, director of the Librarians' Index to the Internet and a former American Libraries technology columnist.
