Thing 15: Web Presence

My library has no web presence. Currently the library website is the Home Page on Follett Destiny. This provides a great place to list our databases but as I am exploring screencasting I realize I need a better system. Before exploring a  presence on social media I need a website! I will use this lesson to explore websites to identify the layout and content for my website.

Holy Cow!!!! Get me a paper bag I am about to hyperventilate! Panic has set in. These websites are amazing….information filled…..and oh, so much more than what I can wrap my head around! Looking at the websites I realized I needed to identify features that I like as well as things that I can do NOW and ideas for the FUTURE.

The Castilleja Library is all encompassing and active in social media.

• FUTURE – Featured headline photos with descriptions
• NOW – Clear boxes on the right hand side leading to the catalog and databases. This could be expanded to include many frequently used features.
• NOW – Recommended reading section that included links to popular and award winning lists.

The Plymouth Regional High School Library award winning. Lots of information

• I really liked how the blog entries automatically update the website.
• Link to Your Next Read for readers advisory was a nice feature
• I found that I ended up with a TON of tabs open and couldn’t navigate them all
• Used LibGuides as a back end. I felt that this made navigation unclear.

Milipitas High School Library My favorite so far!

• Library information readily available on the top of the home page
• Personalized with a bio page for the librarian
• Updates using the blog posts
• Love the tabs for digital resources. I could use this for the way I currently have my databases divided.  NOTE: This was powered by GalePages and only displayed Gale databases. Once I was on the page there was no easy way to get back to the home page of the library.
• Love the “new books” section. Clicking on a book showed it was powered by Library Thing and thus would be easily maintainable.
• Love the Google form used for book requests.
• Many features and tools available right from the front page that took advantage of other features and would not require maintenance such as: database search, source evaluation, book request form and calendar.
• PB works as back end for pathfinders. However, many of the pages had not been updated for years.

Springston School Library Blog

• Used Picassa as a back end for scrolling library photos

Ventura High School Library This library appears to be very formal.

• I liked how directions were given to check your checkouts
• Library Rules were published and viewable
• Interesting current news page. There may be resources here that would be useful for my website
• There were too many things that reflect the way we used to think to make me want to review it in depth. I mean really, you MUST have your student ID to check out a book and if it’s late we charge 10 cents per day does not meet my districts expectations of opportunity and accessibility.

I have also been collecting examples of High School websites with features I like on my Pearltrees page. I will review and incorporate them into my final design also.

After looking at all the blogs and websites and reviewing Free Tech for Teachers Creating Blogs and Websites post I realize I need to brainstorm exactly what it is I want/need to include on my website before starting on website design. The online content ideas checklist  from the National Libraries of New Zealand webpage is very useful and all encompassing to make sure we didn’t miss anything. I will also review this great list7 Best Practices for Creating a User Friendly Library Website. Since I have a co-librarian we need to work on this together so I will explore a collaboration tool to get us going.