Thing 10

Having looked at the library websites in the "public libraries hall of fame," it's pretty clear to me that they've probably entered themselves to the list (which, understanding how wikis work, is entirely plausible). In library school, my first assignment in my very first class was designing a website. In the process, we evaluated the sites designed by others in the class and other library websites in general. Some of the websites in this "hall of fame" list did not strike me as very impressive - many have home pages (and subsequent pages) that are so "busy" and "flashy" (blinking images, lots of movement) that, while attention-getting, they are more distracting than helpful. The more classy sites are straightforward, with clearly marked navigational features, and less of the glitz and glamour - but are still colorful, attractive, etc. I think our website falls under this category and can compete with the best of them. Beyond the look, our site is packed with resources! Unfortunately, although these are well-categorized and organized, there is so much here that sometimes I have difficulty remembering where to find something I know I've used before! This makes me wonder if patrons are getting the most out the resources we provide, or if too much useful information is buried, especially because it seems to me (and this is simply my personal impression) that the majority of people using online resources are very lazy in their searching techiniques and never get beyond the most basic keyword search in Google. Not a reason to dumb down our site or our catalog, but an incentive to provide instruction in finding information more effectively. In any case, I do think our virtual presence is impressive. (A question: do we know if it has had a measureable impact on gate count and in-house use of the library, as one might expect it to?)
Finally, to get to the assignment for Thing 10. I checked out and downloaded the book Shadow Catcher by Michael White to my computer. I have to say that I will probably never read an entire book on a full-size computer screen, but, as with Google Books full text editions, it's great to be able to look into a book without having the physical copy in hand. If I had a portable device, however, I think I would actually be likely to read a book on it. And, as a great fan of audiobooks, I can see myself -in the future - investing in an MP3 player to take advantage of the downloadable audiobooks we offer. I was surprised at how many e-audiobook titles were currently checked out when browsing the list! I will say that I found it difficult to browse the consortium list; as this expands I hope it can more closely replicate the search features of the library catalog, at least in allowing subject/genre searches beyond the very general categories now employed.