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
Linda says
Hello David–I was looking at both your ebook and the webinar. I can only afford to do one (paying myself, not my school!), which one do you recommend? Many thanks, Linda
davidleeking says
Hi! The two are pretty different, so it depends on what you want out of it. The webinar will be focused on building websites – not so much the technical parts, but how to run a successful design/website project.
My book is all about digital experiences – how to give visitors to your website an engaged experience that keeps them coming back for more.
Hope this helps!
Jude says
I took a look at your library’s website, and while it is better than many, I tried to find the information I was asked today by a customer. Â I’m a virtual reference librarian. Â One patron asked what the fines were. Â Another patron asked how many DVDs you can check out at a time. Â I found information about fines by searching, but there was no intuitive way to find it. Â This is not an intuitively obvious path to me: Â HomeFind StuffCatalogAccount HelpHow to Pay Fees
In the few minutes I spent searching, I didn’t find information about limits on DVDs or other items.
I was, however, happy to find book drop locations listed under About us. Â In other words, like every library website in existence, your library website still needs work.
davidleeking says
Jude – you’re right – our site still needs work. It’s certainly not perfect
by any means. Keep in mind too that what works for us might not work for
your organization. For example, our path to that info is Home/About
us/Account Help – a bit more intuitive than the route you took.
And that Account Help page is the 20th most popular page on our website, so
it is getting found by our patrons.
But an improvement is still needed here – we need to actually make a clear
link spelling some of that stuff out (if our patrons ask those questions a
lot). Most of it is buried in wordy text.
So, thanks for the suggestion! I’ll look into this some more.