The Virtual Library Branch

Before I write anything about the library's website I want to mention my experience downloading a digital book. I had wanted to download a book for a long time and just never got around to it. (One of the many good things about 10 things @ spl is that it "forces" me to do things I otherwise put off.) Once again the actual downloading is very easy. I made one mistake - I already have Adobe Reader so I thought I didn't need to download the software. But when the computer told me I had finished downloading my first book, it was no where to be found. It is somewhere in cyberspace, I know not where. I then downloaded the Adobe Reader software and another book without a problem. What I dislike intensely is the fact that searching for a book to download is very, very cumbersome if I don't already have a title in mind. I literally have to scroll through every book. THERE HAS GOT TO BE A BETTER WAY! Innovative is supposed to work with libraries - at least that's what the president of the company told me when I interviewed him for a project when I was in school. Wouldn't you think one of us would come up with a suggestion for doing it better? That said I don't have any ideas at the moment.

I think we have an incredible amount of information on our web site. I spent some time poking around the Movies and Music and the Reading sections since I spend most of my time in the Kids section. I love booklists and we have tons of them. Plus we have links to newsletters about books, special web sites, databases for literary criticism. It's amazing. I do think, however, that our strength is also our weakness. There is so much information on our web site and it is so dense that it can be difficult to find information. Even though I work with the Kids pages every day there are still things I have trouble finding. I can only imagine what it's like for patrons sometimes.

If we add things right now I think we should be adding things that make access to information easier. So, it might be fun to have a weekly podcast on our homepage that talks about what's happening at the library in the coming week - something that briefly highlights major events. In Youth Services Ruth S. developed a presentation for schools about our web site and what classrooms and students could access from our website, including how to use the electronic databases. Wouldn't it be cool to have that as a podcast in the student database section. It would act as a tutorial and help folks learn how to use the resources. I haven't seen WebConnections yet. If it doesn't address search strategies I definitely think that would need to be included. Just a thought.