Why redesign? Why this blog?

Our library web page is currently undergoing a redesign. My intention with the blog is to give you a heads up, keep you updated on the project, and to ask for your input. While this is still under development, now is a great time for all of us to think about what features we would like to see on our website.

Why do we need to change it?

Back in August, I attended a program on web redesign.  One of the comments Darin Givens made which reasonated with me, was his belief that when he started designing his library’s website that he would someday get to the stage where he was finally finished.  Like him, I too once held this same belief.  But, as it turns out what he realized instead was that redesigning a website is an ongoing process.  Because technology never stops changing one will never be done.   You just have to try and keep pace with new developments.

Right now the buzz is all about Web 2.0 and we need to be taking advantage of all that it has to offer. There are a lot of great features that we can’t currently offer to our patrons. One of these being syndicated content, which is number 5 on Hynchcliffe’s Ten Ways to Take Advantage of Web 2.0.

[excerpt]…”users on the Web, particularly the early adopters and influential users, are using browsers less and less, and information aggregators like RSS feed readers more and more. Advice: Make sure your web site offers its content up as feeds or Web services. If you don’t offer, you will be an island unto yourself “

IMHO our new site also really needs to invite user participtation and we need to incorporate some interactive features. To give some examples, this means letting our patrons forward posts to friends, receive RSS feeds from the library about upcoming events, allow users to post comments about books they checked out, and possibly adding MEEBO so people can chat with a librarian.

For the library staff, the big change would be to allow multiple staff members to post content to our site. Karen Coombs, explains in her article Building a Library Web Site on the Pillars of Web 2.0 the goal at her library was to decentralize control of their site so that staff could update content. I’d like to do the same thing here.  The details of this we would still need to work out.  This is an interesting article and I’d encourage you to take a look at it.

This blog is here to better communicate with all of you about the design plus give you a chance for input in the process before we go live. So, if you want to learn more about how the project is developing and offer your feedback, suggestions and general comments then you are in the right place!.

I’ve posted an online survey which I hope everyone will take some time to complete. I’ll also be posting documentation on the blog as I go, so you can peruse that also if you are so inclined. Please take some time and give an opinion, comment, or suggestion… Thanks for reading!