Based on their comments to a recent survey, many ALA members welcome the opportunity to participate in online communities, including the ability to hold threaded discussions and live chats, to learn of ALA news and events, and to accomplish at least some of their committee and other group work in a shared online workspace.
Numerous electronic communications opportunities already exist between members and the Association, hundreds of electronic discussion lists, and "MyALA," where members can customize their experience of the Association's website. Members would like "one-stop" or "one-login" access to all of these offerings. Seamless integration of online community discussion threads and shared workspaces, discussion list output, website access, and instantly-available information regarding the member's "place" in the mix of ALA communications and membership opportunities is a worthy goal to keep in mind.
Members specifically do not want yet another login to remember, nor do they want yet another place to look for communications with ALA They want easy, direct online interaction with the organization, and they want to be able to control their online interactions to their satisfaction. It is important that any system chosen allow participants to choose whether or not to participate.
An ideal scenario would be for the user to have one simple address to remember for all interactions with ALA. By accessing this address and entering their universal (to ALA) ID and password, users would then be able to pick and choose from a wide variety of communications options: threaded discussions, the latest shared documents pertaining to their committee work, web access to discussion list postings, live chat with other committee members or online community members, etc. Their choices should be supported and enabled by information about their current status within the organization: which online communities to which they belong, yes, but also to which discussion lists are they subscribed, to which divisions and round tables they belong, what committees are they on, what their current communications preferences are (both with ALA and with other community members - e.g., "I do not currently wish to receive mail or email from organizations other than ALA, nor do I want to appear visible to others in the online community system right at the moment..."). User experience should also be informed by the status of others online at the moment: what chats are going on and who is participating, who is online to chat with, and are they interested in chatting? Members should receive timely notification of online events they have signed up for, and should be able to specify how and when such notifications should appear.
Members should have some ability to customize their "space" in the online communities system. The best example of this type of customization is "MyYahoo!," where users have the ability to choose which types of information they wish to appear on their "home page" and to further specify individual items within those categories. For example, MyYahoo! users can choose to see new music releases for this week and next week, but can further choose whether they want to see listings in classical, pop, country, etc. While this may be a bit beyond the scope of the current system, it's conceivable that users might one day want the ability to select "division news and website updates for ALCTS, but only for these three sections or committees..." Or, they might want to have an RSS feed going from LITA in one corner of the screen, while they participate in a chat in another portion of the screen.
Further, within Yahoo! Mail, users have the ability to select from a limited number of color schemes for the mail interface. This sort of customization doesn't necessarily make or break people's satisfaction with a system, but elements under the user's control, however small, give the user the feeling that they are in charge, which does contribute to satisfaction -- especially in an organization the size and complexity of ALA, where members may feel powerless to effect change.
