Comments on: the usable library website poster

By: Aaron

Aaron — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:07:07 +0000

I don’t have any more info about the poster posted yet. Soon we’re going to look at the results and write about them, hopefully.

By: vj

vj — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 03:08:34 +0000

Having just gone through an OPAC upgrade, and doing interviews at libraries with staff, everyone thinks the OPAC is the website and vice versa.

Is more info posted on your poster session? I’d love to learn a little more… especially since you’re going to all the cons I wanna be at :)

By: Jane Trump

Jane Trump — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:55:25 +0000

Aaron – I really hope you do follow up on your intention to explore the tendency of patrons to equate a library’s website with its OPAC. When we got a new OPAC a year ago we got a lot of comments that were either ” I hate your new website” or “I love your new website” when the website hadn’t changed a bit. We are in the process of a re-design of our site, so this would be a great time to figure out how to attract attention beyond the OPAC component of the site.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 03:13:34 +0000

Glad you like the idea!

Shoot me an email or use my contact form if you have more questions :)

By: Elisheba Muturi

Elisheba Muturi — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 02:42:50 +0000

The idea of an interactive poster session is sooo appealing. What an excellent way of engage your audience while at the same time gathering really valuable information. If you don’t mind I would like to pick your brain on how to set up the interactive components. We disseminate health information and go to health fairs and this has given me an idea for learning what our audience would like to see on a website we are building.

Fantastic!

By: Jami

Jami — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:30:32 +0000

I’m looking forward to your findings. I had a blast with your poster (sorry for hijacking some of your audience — i just get so excited!)!

What i thought was interesting, beyond folks equating the library web site with OPACs was how many folks actually referred to the catalog as an OPAC! definitely an interesting insider/outsider take on things (folks who are familiar with libraries and technology, but don’t actually work on library sites).

Good to see you in Memphis!

By: A Digital Outrigger / Library Usability Links 3/25/09

A Digital Outrigger / Library Usability Links 3/25/09 — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 23:38:15 +0000

[...] Paper mentions their usable library website poster presented at the 2009 IA Summit. Interesting comments as [...]

By: Cecily

Cecily — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:01:39 +0000

One thing I’ve found in my own library research is that the things we think people want from a library – blogs, interaction, online community – falls into a “nice to have but not what we want from you” category. The trick is to take these things that we understand as so vital to building sticky, satisfying, and usable online experiences and translate them into tools/functions that add value to the library website experience. It’s a challenge I’m facing in a current project.

I’m not sure why, but building satisfying user experiences seemed much easier in corporate spaces than in library spaces.

David: I’m thinking of proposing a panel for SXSW next year that is largely a recruiting/advocacy effort to get more of the regular SXSW attendees thinking about work in the non-profit sector, libraries in particular. If I were to do it, might you be interested in appearing on such a panel? What about you, Aaron?

By: david lee king

david lee king — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:27:55 +0000

Same at sxsw last week – I said library, and people asked me – and these were the “smart” people building websites – “can you check out books online yet?”

Then I told them what I do, and they went ” … cool …”

My guess – we need to get more of these people hip to the library!

By: Fiona

Fiona — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:51:45 +0000

This is why I think library websites are upside down right now. The library website is the OPAC, so the OPAC should be the library website. I just worked on building a new catalogue and it’s become clear to me this is what we have to do. Give people intelligent search across all library resources in one place, starting from the OPAC (but also making those resources harvested by search engines or meta-collaborative OPACs) and that is how they will discover what else we have to offer – when it is in context and relevant to a search.