Transformative Website Style Guide: Services Examples

Queens University Library provides a service oriented Accessibility page with information about the specialist and services and resources available.

The Ryerson Library accessibility services page highlights their Accessibility support staff and clearly lists services offered.

The University of Michigan Library provides a intuitive tool for users to make requests for accessibility modifications.

This Reserve a room feature provided by UTC Library allows library users to easily book a space ahead of time.

Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries display a capacity meter at the top of their site, allowing students to see the availability for the day.

Dartmouth shows students a photo of each type of space they can reserve so students can ensure they are booking their preferred space.

Binghampton University offers a unique space in their facility for video recording. If your building offers a special, furnished space with the equipment it can be helpful to list the items that are provided for them similar to the example below.

Allowing users to understand your library space ahead of time will help break down any barriers of discomfort when they are looking for the best solution.  The Williams College Library website gives a helpful comparison of the spaces they offer and even offers an online Room Scheduler to book a space.

Boston College has a succinct borrowing services page, with menu options on the left for more choices.

If you click on one of the library names, you see this great contact us page.

Every library should have a well-defined collection development policy and share it on their website. Penn Libraries goes one step further and provides a thorough collection policy for each of their many collections.

Butler University has a list of several of their policies and has included their collection development policy on this page. They have also included several touch-points for those with questions about the policy.

Northwestern University makes their collections easily accessible and navigable by using both a list and a pictorial gallery display of their collections.

Harvard University also makes good use of a gallery display view for their collections, but adds in a search option to help navigate more quickly through the numerous collections.

The University of Michigan collections pages, while a bit more cumbersome to navigate, do an excellent job of connecting you with the librarian responsible for each collection.

Make sure to clearly differentiate between your student and faculty users when sharing information about course reserves, as Vanderbilt University does here.

Consider defining what course reserves mean for those who may not have used the service before. Harvard University does a great job of this.

UC Berkeley combines the two principles above and includes contact information for those with questions.

To draw more interest to events, consider creating a cover image for increased promotion similar to this example from North Carolina State University.

Events should always be displayed prominently on the homepage. Columbia University takes an extra step by creating a way to display events by category: Public Programs, Workshops, and Drop-In Help.

The University of Michigan clearly states what their library offers to course instructors and provides a clear path forward to obtain this service.

Cornell explains why library instruction is important as well as giving faculty clear paths to request it.

York University libraries provide contact information, calls to action, and help information in a single clear way on their interlibrary loan webpage.

University of Texas, Dallas, presents their ILL information with a photo of the staff, contact information, and a single button to begin the process.  The webpage also features an FAQ with more detailed instructions.

In the example below, the library has organized their page to center around starting a request by format and has used buttons as calls to action, such as the "Manage My Requests" yellow button in the upper right.

Northwestern has a great overview of their catalog and search options

Drexel provides this helpful list of types of materials researchers might want to search for.

Bellevue University features a strong graphical layout and clear service lines with calls to action for reference support.

Via their Ask a Librarian page, Fairfield University clearly lists their contact channels.  Though text-heavy, the site does keep things clear and includes an image of the librarians.

The University of Minnesota clearly describes the services they offer for the support of scholarly communication.

The University of San Diego has a scholarly publishing page which describes their Institutional repository as well as how the library can help with the publishing process.

Goshen College features a simply designed page featuring librarian images to create a welcoming personal and approachable service.

In the following example services are clearly organized by constituent to simplify navigation and allow for targeted descriptions of services.