Harry Ransom Center

For this blog entry, I evaluated the website and online information access points of the Harry Ransom Center here at UT.  I spent several years as both a volunteer and an intern at the HRC, and I always found the website to be confusing and circuitous.  There was a recent overhaul of the site, however, and I thought this was the perfect time to see if any beneficial changes had been made, especially on the public access side of things.

My first impression of the new website was that it looks much more aesthetically pleasing, professional, and technologically up-to-date than the older site did.  My second impression, which was almost simultaneous with the first, was that there is a huge amount of information available on the website.  The largest space on the homepage is devoted to a graphic advertising the most recent exhibitions, news, and featured content.  Each advertised piece is a link in picture form, taking you to another section of the site. 

The top of the homepage is the navigation bar, which remains in place as you move throughout the site.  It links to the seven main sections of the site, which include Exhibitions, Events, Visit, and About.  Each of these links also includes a drop-down menu to sub-pages.  Another function of the navigation bar is a search box, where you can search either the site or the collections (more on the collections and finding information therein later).  At the very bottom of the page is another permanent navigation bar, but it is so low down on the page and in such small type that it is easily overlooked.  This bar holds links to a section about conservation, multimedia about the Center, and giving opportunities and the online store (I would have thought these links would be large and in bold). 

Also prominently displayed on the top navigation bar were links to an e-newsletter, podcast, and RSS feed.  These surprised me, but are good indications of how the Center has jazzed up its site and are making it more technologically up-to-date.  The e-newsletter (which was a function of the older site, and to which I am subscribed) is a free monthly update of the events and news of the Ransom Center and provides insiders’ perspectives on these events.  The link provides a way to sign up to receive the email or to read past issues online.  The podcast is of audio interviews, curator’s tours, and other features.  You can subscribe to this podcast, listen to the clips online, or read transcripts.  The RSS feed is a way for the public to keep up with the updates to the website.  (Helpfully, this page also provides a link to a New York Times article about RSS feeds and different readers.)

The whole site seems very committed to providing information to the public and advertising its events and exhibitions.  The majority of the site is devoted to the “museum” aspect of the Center, as opposed to its “library” side; there is not nearly as much webspace devoted to searching the materials, for example, as there is detailing upcoming events that the Center is sponsoring.  (But more on that is still to come.)  The individual pages of the site hold a vast amount of information about the Center; its history; its current, past, and future exhibits; visitor information, such as hours, parking, etc.; and frequently asked questions.  Features that I enjoyed specifically were: a video going behind-the-scenes at the Ransom Center, showing pieces from the different collections; the pages devoted to the conservation department and all the work it does; and a contest to win a private tour of the On the Road with the Beats exhibit.  To enter the contest, one must fill out a questionnaire, originally sent by Gerard Malanga to Daisy Aldan in 1960, entitled Are You a Beatnik?, as well as compose an original Beatnik poem.  I think this contest is so cool and so fun and such a great way for the Ransom Center to get the public involved in its exhibits.

But on to actually searching for a specific item in the Ransom Center’s vast collections.  There are two tabs in the navigation bar that deal with this aspect: Collections and Research.  This is the same as it was on the old site, and I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now.  It’s confusing to have two separate sections about the collections.  What’s the difference?  Which will get me what I want?  I’ve always had a hard time with this.

The Collections tab links only to information about the collections, not any way to search for items in the catalog.  You can browse this information by type (Books, Film, Art) or by areas of study (Classics, History of Science, Texana).  There is one searchable feature in this section of the website, but it is only the online edition of Guide to the Collections, a book published by the HRC that summarizes what it holds and highlights some particularly famous and interesting items.

To actually look for a certain book, photograph, or piece of art, the Research tab is the best bet.  Some of the searching for items in the Ransom Center just goes through the main UT Libraries OPAC.  The HRC site gives instructions on how to limit searches on that website to its holdings, or only certain dates or former owners.  There are separate search boxes on the Ransom Center’s site, however, for periodicals and photographs.  Much of the Research tab is devoted to protocol for accessing the collections and how to contact librarians for help.

The bulk of the searchable information comes in the form of the HRC’s extensive list of Finding Aids, also accessible under the Research tab.  These Aids are for all materials in the collections, whether books, art, film, manuscripts, etc.  Each Aid consists of many types of information, including biographical sketches, scope and contents notes, and series descriptions.  The Aids take the form of a list detailing box by box and folder by folder what each collection holds.  It is very organized and helpful, though there are some problems.  First, Aids only exist for collections that were cataloged after 1990.  All previously-cataloged collections have their information in the card catalog.  Also, some Aids have more information in them than others.  Lastly, the aids are arranged by collection, but not all patrons know what collection the item they’re looking for is in.  While this system is neat and planned, it might not be the best one for public use.

Overall, this is a nice site, though I’m not sure it’s made vast improvement on its predecessor.  I still found the searching aspect to be somewhat confusing, and I found some of the links on the various pages to be overwhelming.  It was easy to lose your place if you wanted to see everything the site had to offer.  The site map was useful, but easy to miss if you weren’t looking for it.  But, the Ransom Center holds so much information that I understand it’s hard to provide access to all of it in a way that everyone will understand.