MacEwan University Library Website Guidelines
1. Mandate
The mandate of the MacEwan University Library’s website is to provide a seamless single access point to library resources and services. The website features a user-centred, responsive, and accessible design to facilitate discoverability and access to physical and electronic resources, as well as to information about staff and services supporting learning and research.
2. Accessibility
The Library supports equitable access to website content, and endeavors to ensure accessibility for users with disabilities by conforming to level AA of the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.
3. Content Reuse
All content created or authored by Library employees is made available for non-commercial reuse under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (CC BY-NC) unless otherwise indicated.
4. Maintenance
Website maintenance is ongoing, with minimal disruption to users. The maintenance of the site is overseen and coordinated by Library IT staff. Individual web page upkeep follows a distributed web page editing model, to ensure the currency and accuracy of information presented on those pages. The Library’s unit overseeing collections is responsible for the development and maintenance of catalog records.
5. Enhancements
Website enhancements, including the creation of new pages and subject guides, changes to the Library catalog search functionality, and the moving of menu items, are normally implemented prior to the start of a new academic term (e.g. Fall, Winter, Intersession, etc.). All substantial and major planned website enhancements are communicated to Library staff prior to implementation.
Enhancement requests are vetted by the Library’s team responsible for overseeing the website alongside staff responsible for that content, as applicable. Enhancements should follow the Library’s content guidelines.
6. Privacy Statement
Access to data that the Library collects is restricted. The Library adheres to the MacEwan University Privacy Statement.
The Library has access to the University’s web server access log files, and we collect Google Analytics tracking data, all to help improve website usability. The website analytics data elements collected include the date and time of the visit, website pages accessed, the referring URL of the page used to access the website, the browser and operating system of the client device, and the query strings used to search the catalog. In addition, the Library collects a variety of other transaction data elements from various Library information systems, such as EZproxy accesses, database accesses, catalogue search queries, and other information system transactions.
Access to these analytics and transactions data is restricted by both University and Library policies, and will not be used to personally identify people. Finally, the Library website contains links out to external websites, and these external websites are not part of the Library's privacy statement.
7. Document Review
The Library Website Guidelines should be reviewed every three years or as required.
19 January 2021 [Edited 11 January 2024]