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Newsletter 14, March 1997 |
Leeds City Council has produced a series of pages on the Internet which, apart from providing all the information you would hope to find, such as listings of Councillors, local elections, services and constituency details (all very useful in themselves) goes on to provide excellent detailed information on many other aspects of living, working and having fun in Leeds.
The Home Page divides into information on tourism, the city council, libraries, business and education; these in turn allow access to hundreds of other pages of useful local information together with links to additional relevant sites.
The following are just a few of the pages available, but serve to highlight the depth and scope of subject coverage:
There are many useful features incorporated into the pages, such as clickable icons and maps, many include eye-catching photographs or illustrations, and the site is generally extremely easy to navigate thanks to its highly-structured menu-driven format. Visitors to the site also have the option to search using key words by choosing the “Site Index” option from the Home Page. A small criticism here is that this option is a little inconspicuous — perhaps the search engine could have been made more a feature of the Home Page to help speed up access to specific information.
One of the most unusual features of the site is that it provides access to a “small” selection (over 250) of local historical photographs, part of the City Library’s collection of over 32,000 illustrations of Leeds and Yorkshire. These images can be downloaded to disk or sent, complete with personal message, via email as a “webcard”. Photographic prints of the images, in various sizes, are also available to order.
The web site should prove a very useful quick-reference tool at the Enquiry Desk for all manner of queries regarding local addresses, contacts and organizations. Students studying on many of the University’s courses, particularly in the fields of Business, Hospitality Management, Library and Information Studies, Sport and Leisure, Tourism and Education will also have access to much valuable information concerning the region; the business and education pages are, perhaps, particularly useful for detailed, current information.
Aside from teaching and studying, all students and staff new to Leeds will find something of value in the pages, whether it be information on concerts, events, attractions, city maps, shopping areas, theatre programmes or bus timetables. As I have only been able to give a brief description of the pages, I highly recommend that you go to the Leeds City Council home page and have a browse yourself.
