By Amanda L. Goodman | Editor's Note: This is the fourth in a series of posts profiling library websites developed on the WordPress platform, excerpted from The Comparative Guide to WordPress in Libraries, a forthcoming LITA Guide to be published this week. Goodman, along with Polly-Alida Farrington, will be teaching the ecourse "WordPress to Build Library Websites" in February.
ALA TechSource Blog
By Amanda L. Goodman | Editor's Note: This is the third in a series of posts profiling library websites developed on the WordPress platform, excerpted from The Comparative Guide to WordPress in Libraries, a forthcoming LITA Guide to be published in December. Belchertown High School Library bhslib.wordpress.com For a school library, the natural target audience is the student body. In research for my book, I visited hundreds of school websites, usually not seeing even a passing nod to the other users of the library—the school’s faculty and staff. At the Belchertown High School Library, however, the librarian has built a website that supports teachers as well. He provides resources about lesson planning, the state’s standards, and more on a link clearly marked "Teachers." While the website also shines for its collection of study guides and encouragement of mobile databases, the attention paid to the whole service population makes this school library website shine.
By Daniel A. Freeman | On the next episode of American Libraries Live, our expert panel will be discussing tablets and mobile technology and how its impacting the library world. While a lot of the conversation will focus on devices, one of the overlooked aspects of this topic is connectivity and bandwidth. The rise of mobile technology in libraries has created new issues in these areas and new needs for institutions that strive to be as mobile-friendly as possible.
By Marshall Breeding | SirsiDynix has acquired EOS International from its co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Scot Cheatham effective November 1, 2013. The transaction was conducted entirely from financial resources within SirsiDynix without additional backing from its private equity owner, Vista Equity Partners. The acquisition of EOS International will expand the presence of SirsiDynix in the small library arena, and will strengthen its overall position in terms of revenue, customers served, and product offerings. SirsiDynix provides a stable and expansive business environment for the ongoing support, development and marketing of EOS International products as its current owner and CEO sells the company.
By Amanda L. Goodman | Editor's Note: This is the second in a series of posts profiling library websites developed on the WordPress platform, excerpted from The Comparative Guide to WordPress in Libraries, a forthcoming LITA Guide to be published in December. The Grove Library website http://thegrovelibrary.net The Grove Library website is a beautiful, seemingly simple website with a great user interface. The needs of the online patron have been thought through thoroughly. For instance, the navigation uses simple, direct language such as “Find” and “Services For,” which eliminates some of the uncertainties of where to click to find information. By hovering over one of the top horizontal menus, a drop-down menu appears, which also responds to natural questions a user may ask. Examples include: “What you can borrow or browse,” “How to join,” and “See what I have out.” This kind of forwardness is an illustration of best practices from Steve Krug’s book, Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability. This bestselling usability book boils down to this: remove any obstacles that make your user pause to think what that image/word/navigational element means. One of his best examples is that job is a more user-friendly word than career or employment. Be short, simple, and direct. The Grove Library website exemplifies this philosophy.
By Amanda L. Goodman | Editor's Note: This is the first of a series of posts profiling library websites developed on the WordPress platform, excerpted from The Comparative Guide to WordPress in Libraries, a forthcoming LITA Guide to be published in December. Website: libraries.mit.edu/sites/scholarly/ At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Libraries, WordPress has been used to create an informational hub on open access Scholarly Publishing @ MIT Libraries. Peter Suber, director of the Harvard Open Access Project, describes open-access literature as being free and accessible by anyone who has access to the Internet. Suber also writes that open-access literature may be collected in repositories for all content that is produced by that institution or be part of peer reviewed journals. MIT’s Scholarly Publishing website was built to assist faculty and “researchers who have questions about their options and rights in the world of scholarly publishing.”
By Jason Paul Michel | Editor's Note: Jason Paul Michel is teaching the ALA Editions ecourse Introduction to Web Service APIs Using PHP and HTML , which starts October 15. This post is adapted from his book on the topic, a PDF version of which is included with the ecourse. Libraries have lost the battle. The web is now, and has been for a while, where people go to find information. But that is a vague statement. Imagine the web as a huge, vast cityscape. Most of this city consists of sparsely populated back alleys and warrens, while standing at the center are a few heavily populated monoliths: Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, IMDb, Flickr, and a few others. These are the places people go to find information.
By Patrick Hogan | Ken Varnum is teaching the upcoming ALA Editions ecourse Using Drupal to Build Library Websites. As with all The TECH SET titles, we've posted an interview with Ken and a sample chapter. You can go directly to Scribd to read Chapter 3 "Planning" and share with your colleagues.
By Marshall Breeding | Editor's note: This post is adapted from an article to be published in the October issue of Marshall Breeding's Smart Libraries Newsletter.