Target: Stacking its library shelves

A range of filters allows image library users to find content more speedily.

The Site

Target, the US discount retail chain, has a searchable Image Library among the Resources for the Media in the News section of its Corporation website. The Library’s index page carries 11 buttons for image categories ranging from Community Giving and Consumables + Pets to Sports and Target Stores.

Clicking any of the buttons opens a category page with a four-field search/filter panel. Options are: word search; sub-category filter, which is customised for the open category; years filter (from 2001 to 2006); and sort by age, category, title (alphabetically) or relevance. Sub-categories can also be accessed via a set of titled icons displayed below the search panel.

An identical search and filter facility is used in the Background Briefs + Bios area of Resources for the Media, but not in the News Release Library.

The Takeaway

Image libraries are arguably the most valuable resource a media section can offer because they have transformed how pictures find their way from organisations to picture desks. The most eye-catching feature of Target’s Image Library is the range of options it offers journalists looking for material. Many sites don’t provide this sophisticated and robust a search engine across the whole site let alone one area of one section of it. The great advantage this brings journalists is speed, the ability to locate what they are looking for quickly. This translates into a saving of time, a precious commodity to reporters on deadlines and an aspect of the service they will be sure to note.

Target’s replication of the search capability in its Background Briefs archive is another notable feature, giving a reassuring consistency to usability – though this is tempered by a different configuration in news releases and the limitation of searches there to keyword or year.

First published on 25 April, 2006