David Lee King

social media | emerging trends | libraries

iPads, iPhones, and Flash

By

I have an iPhone. I also have an iPad2. And apparently, I don’t have Flash.

I say “apparently” … because I haven’t really missed it. Sure, there’s been a couple of times that I’ve run into the “you need to install flash to view this” message – usually on a poorly-designed website that I tried to get to from a link in an article I was reading.

But have I missed Flash? No, not really. Most of my browsing activity comes from reading RSS feeds, which I get just fine. Most of my video viewing comes via Youtube, which I also get just fine.

If I need to test something from my library’s website, our library catalog, or our databases, I get those just fine too. No Flash required.

How about you? Do you find yourself missing Flash? Is it a problem? If so, how come? Please share!

Upcoming Webinar – Building the Digital Branch: Designing Effective Library Websites

By

If you’re interested in building better websites, make sure to sign up for my upcoming webinar for ALA TechSource on June 8 – Building the Digital Branch: Designing Effective Library Websites. Just click the link to sign up!

This will be the second time I have given this webinar. If you attended the first one, never fret! There will be new content – I’m going to talk about how Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library (where I work) built our current website (the redesign went live on March 1).

Here’s the blurb for the webinar:

Every library needs a presence on the web. Whether you work at a large academic library or a public library in a small town, you need to be able to deliver service and content to patrons outside  your building. David Lee King will once again present this popular workshop, taking you through the process of building an effective, user-friendly library website that will expand and enhance your library’s presence in the community.

In this workshop, you’ll learn:

  • How to successfully plan and implement a redesign of your website
  • How to find out what patrons want from your website
  • How to use your website to interact with patrons
  • How to create strategic plans and goals for your website

Sign up NOW!

Get your website off of your website!

By

It used to be hard to get other websites to link to your site. Why? Because you had to ask them to do it. Then (if they decided that made sense) they had to manually create the link. If you pointed them to a sub-page of your site and then redesigned, most likely that link changed – so you had to go through the process again. And this was primarily for other businesses or organizations. Individuals? Most normal people didn’t have websites, and didn’t think they’d ever need one.

Guess what? This has changed! These days – though most people don’t think of it like this – most normal people have websites. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that more individuals have websites than do organizations.

Why do I say that? Because of Facebook. Facebook profiles are essentially personal websites. People with a Facebook account now have a way to post text, photos, and videos, add some “about me” info, and have a place for comments. Contact information can be there, if you choose to do that. You even have a URL (and now, even an email address from Facebook). And the people who also have Twitter, Linked In, or Instagram accounts? They have multiple personal web spaces.

And this is awesome. Because now, you – as an organization – have an amazingly simple way to get your content linked to a multitude of other websites without really having to ask.

Just do this: post good, useful content to your organization’s social places. Post information about your upcoming events. Post interesting book reviews. Etc. And include a link back to the full content on your library’s website.

OK – you also need to write in a fun, interesting way that’s conversational and not too market-y sounding. And this is assuming your organization actually has a presence on social networks, and has been actively working to attract friends to those sites.

Guess what? People respond. By commenting and liking. By retweets to your stuff. When they do this, they have just done something HUGE. They have just added your content to their streams … to their “websites.” And at the same time, shared your content with their friends. Then the process starts all over again.

And voila! Your content has just made it “out of the building.” Pretty cool, huh?

pic by moonlightbulb

Help?

By

Do you have a help page? On the main page of your website or your catalog?

Have you made it prominent?

And if so … Why?

If you have to have a help section … on the main page of your website … you’re doing something wrong.

Instead of making a help page, or an FAQ, or a list of frequently visited pages … why not just redesign and fix those things so people can find them without needing Help or FAQs??

Usually, the reason you are adding that help page is because lots of people are having problems that information on your website. The reason you’re adding that list of quick links is because people have been looking for those pages, but they can’t find them. Your FAQ? Most likely explaining something that doesn’t make sense to your customers.

Focus on fixing, not on bandaids. Harder to do? Yep. Takes more time? Probably so. But if you fix the underlying root problems, then when it’s time for a major redesign, much of your work will already be done. You’ll have a strong underlying structure in place, and your navigation will work great. And your explanations of how to do things will be simple enough and customer-focused enough that they’ll make sense to the average user.

And you won’t need a Help page.

Image by Dimitri N.

No One Starts at Your Website

By

Guess what? Your patrons aren’t starting their information searches at your library’s website. In fact, OCLC checked that out. In their Perceptions of Libraries, 2010: Context and Community report, they found that … NO ONE … started their info search at a library website. Yep – that’s a big, fat 0%.

And you know what? That’s ok.

Here are a couple of thoughts about that:

1. Your site isn’t built for that, and probably will never be. Sure, you have a link to your catalog. And links to a variety of databases. But those aren’t your website. On your actual website, you have a lot of information up about your library, like your policies and info on your board of trustees. But that’s not really what the majority of your patrons are interested in.

You do have some information that your patrons want, like hours, locations, etc – those are used a lot on my library’s website. But that’s not really the start of someone searching for information, is it?

2. There are other tools already set up that do that whole “let’s start an info search” much better than us. Think Google, Bing, or even Wikipedia. They are made to find little nuggets of info. In years past, actual librarians did that great – and there weren’t many other options. But now, the web owns that ready reference type stuff.

So what are our websites for?

Well – that should depend on your library’s strategic plan. But generally speaking, our websites serve a variety of purposes, including:

  • point to info sources. Catalog, databases, useful local organizations
  • we’re set up to answer questions (that’s not necessarily connected to beginning that info search)
  • some of us enhance learning, entertainment, and local community stuff via blog posts or posts/reminders about events at the library
  • all that normal stuff about the library – hours, locations, board members, policies.

But start info searches? That doesn’t really make sense in today’s web environment anymore (not to me, anyway).

Instead, point your patrons to the best places to go to start their searches – then, when they get confused … make sure they know that you are there, ready to expand, reshape, and redefine those searches so they’re actually useful.

That’s our job.

pic by jakeandlindsay