You have until Mother's Day for the Virtual Library Assignment:
Part one: Go thoroughly through our library’s website. Pay particular attention to other department areas or links you’ve never used before.
Comment this week with: What aspects of our website do you like the most? Do you have any ideas for new services we can provide through the virtual branch? What other ways can the library improve its web presence?
Part two: Choose the database you are the least familiar with. Spend at least 20 minutes exploring it; try to answer a question that a patron might have. Comment with the name of the database you chose, and what your experience with it was like.
Part three: Take a look at the public library "hall of fame" at http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Website_Design.
Choose at least 5 public library sites to browse. Comment on whether or not you see any good ideas that we can add to our own library website.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
I did this before looking completely at our website, so we may already do some of these things. St. Charles has a link to board minutes. For kids, I liked tht they had participation guidelines and etiquette tips for book discussions, as well as student book reviews. Arlington Hts. has a link to kidgames on the internet. Boston has the summer readings lists online. Morton Grove has a list of websites sorted by Dewey (000's, 100's, etc.). Denver has a boring homepage. Their kid's page is better and has a link to free kid puzzles and coloring pages.
Time for another comment. Checked out our website. compared to other libraries, it seems we do a pretty good job. I especially like the idea of the quick lists and I think the kids page looks cool. I explored 2 databases - General Ref.Center, which is like the old Reader's Guide. Did a search for the game Monopoly and one for leopards - I'd tell you what they were, but I may use them for summer trivia! It's obvious though, that using the advanced search is best. I also looked at Literature Resource Ctr. - it has a lot of the info that Something About the Author has. The only difference is that the author has to be in Contemporary Authors and some children's authors may not be. Mercer Mayer, Lois Ehlert, and Avi were there though. Is this the point where I now can say "HALLELUJAH!" - the assignments are over?
Part one: Since I am on the webpage committee I think I am pretty familiar with our website. The new design is great and I am so happy that we finally have a grid calendar! I know we are in the process of getting a new type of calendar and the hope is that we can have it color coded for different age groups…
Vida, FYI- we do have the Board minutes on our website, they are listed under the Library Board tab. The For Kids page that Kathy designed is great! I am such a visual person and don’t like lists and lists of things. Thanks Kathy!
As far as new services we could offer; I think it would be interesting to try out some kind of online book discussion blog. We would probably want the kids to submit things to us and we decide if the comment is appropriate (actually about the book, I don’t mean we should censor). I know we are also supposed to be soon having program registration online so that is very exciting! I will be back with Part two and three
Part two: I tried the Literature Resource database since it is supposed to be like Something About the Author and we have discontinued it! I first searched for O.T. Nelson and had no matches; I then tried it by title “Girl Who Owned a City” and had no matches either. I know this isn’t a well known author and I am not sure if it’s a well known book or not. It is well known around here since it was written by a Glen Ellyn author and takes place here is Glen Ellyn. That worries me a little but like I said the title and author probably aren’t too well known. I then tried an “Alabama Moon” and I found an entry for Watt Key. The entries that I did find I thought seemed helpful and much like SATA. I think this will be a good database to teach patrons about. I do have to say though that it doesn’t seem to be updated real quickly. I searched Rick Riordan and only “The Lightning Thief” of his Percy Jackson & the Olympians books is listed. It says his entry was last updated 8/22/2006. That’s too bad!
Part three: Arlington Heights Library had Video Blogs that were fun! This is a great way to promote programs, we just have to find people that want to be in the videos I guess. I think we should have IM’ing on our webpage like many libraries do. Also I think we should have RSS feeds that come from our library about programs that will happen and maybe we could talk about a new title that we have purchased or something else that is new about the library. This is a great way to keep popping up on people’s computers if we can get them to subscribe to our feed. Email notification to remind patron’s of programs is also something we should try!
As I compared our website to over 10 other libraries in the area I remained impressed. It is attractive, easy to navigate and informative.
I spent time in the teen section just because of the interest I have in appealing to this age group, I think it is very difficult. I concentrated on homework help.
There is no link to homework help in the Young Adult section only in the For Kids section. A suggestion would be a link to not only homework help such as www.carnegielibrary.org/subject/homework/ , tutor.com. but also links for this age group links that deal with college questions www.collegeboard.com, career info, www.mapping-your-future.org/planning. Also in the text book list it might be possible to include a link that some textbooks have that offer the book online.
I've always been very impressed with out website. It's attractive, easy to navigate, and seems to have a lot of information, without being overwhelming. I've had to look at a lot of library websites lately for school, and I always find myself comparing others to Glen Ellyn as a point of reference.
Some improvements might include making the kids pages a little bit more interesting to look at. There's plenty of information there, and it's well organized and aesthetically pleasing, but might be more appealing with a few more visuals. Also, I don't know how feasible this is, but it might be fun to put some library-related games on the site, similar to ones on websites like PBSkids.org where they're specifically designed for kids, with lots of book tie-ins and an overall theme of advancing literacy. Vida's idea of links to puzzles and coloring pages might also be fun.
I decided to check out the student resource center, since I don't really know it well and it seems pretty complex. I started by just clicking on different "popular subjects," and was surprised by the amount and depth of information that came up. I wish I'd had this in high school, it would have saved me a lot of headaches. I then tried to use the resource to answer a refernce question. Using different search functions, I was able to find a lot of different types of resources that could answer my question, all aimed at a teenage audience. I thought it was a pretty good database, but could probably be overwhelming for someone (i.e. a MS or HS student) who's not familiar with this kind of resource.
Part three:
One thing I noticed as I searched through other webistes was that many of the libraries that wrote blogs had them linked directly from the front page and highly visible. We have the adult reader's advisory blog linked under "Items of Interest" but you have to scroll down to see it, and the YA blog is only visible once you go to the YA section or if you read the drop down menu. In general, it might be nice to expand the first page a little bit to make items like the RA blogs more visible. I also really liked Arlington Heights' inclusion of a video blog, with the link directly visible on their front page.
Post a Comment