The overall aim of the current investigation is to identify header and text elements which will assist researchers in determining quickly the relevance, authenticity, and value of digital artifacts, as well as information about the credentials of their creators. Specifically, we note two trends in Web access and design which would appear to have ramifications - one primarily for Web designers and another for information intermediaries, such as librarians and archivists.
Web designers spend a great deal of effort creating attractive and useful home pages.
However, preliminary analysis of server statistics suggests that many users never see these pages, having arrived at individual documents on the server through other means. The topics of documents are more likely to be of importance than the site's Web page hierarchy. This should not surprise librarians or archivists. People looking for print or AV material on particular topics rarely know that topical directories of academic, public, and special library contents exist. However, given the lack of editorial control on the Net, where authors act as their own publishers, the consequences of arriving at specific items are more far reaching.