Stap isi

14 February 2011

Shown the way by San Jose

Ever worked on the information architecture of a library site or section?

Labels like “information services”, “electronic resources” and “online databases” will send you mad. They describe their contents adequately to librarians, but to anyone else?

I had the good fortune recently to meet Sarah Houghton-Jan, the Librarian in Black and Assistant Director for the San Rafael Public Library.

In her previous role as Digital Futures Manager of San Jose Public Library, Sarah developed – fought for – the best information architecture I’ve come across on a library website.

Here is a snapshot of the top level sections:

• Books and Media – access to catalogues, readers’ advisory services, eBooks and book clubs; I like the link If We Don’t Have Your Book… which takes you to inter-library loans information and an opportunity to tell us what to buy
• Downloads – access to eBooks, audio books and music, plus subscription databases offering newspapers and journals; importantly, help pages for all these too, like New User’s Guide… and Supported Devices
• Services – information aimed at typical user groups (e.g. children, teens), plus the nitty gritty on photocopying, wireless and web access
• Research and Homework – here be electronic resources, under Find Articles Online and Homework Help; interestingly, also Local History Online
• News & Events – the library blog, whose usefulness is maximised by categorising posts and piping them into the sections above, very nicely done
• Locations – hours and locations, plus map

In her blog post on the redeveloped website she says:

We don’t use the words “database” or “OPAC.” We chose words that our users actually told us they wanted us to use.

Yes, they did user testing and Sarah has stats.

I’ve now forgotten the precise numbers she quoted, but from memory “Downloads” tested over 80%, more than double the recognition for “online databases”. The choice of labels may surprise you, but they are based on user vocabularies.

Dig through the site. There is lots to learn, and borrow.

— b3rn   design, ia, libraries   Feb 14, 09:13 PM   #   Comment

12 September 2008

Local history librarians rostered onto Wikipedia: why not?

Local Studies collections are incredibly rich assets. Much of the knowledge is unique. Many of the materials cannot be found elsewhere.

But they’re generally undervalued by just about everyone in local government.

Except librarians. No, even librarians.

Despite early access to information technology, their more recent experience has been working behind firewalls, having restricted access to rich media and using comparatively antiquated equipment. Most people at home have better access to the net than what’s available to library staff.

And I’m not sure if the enthusiasm of larger State libraries and museums for using social media like Flickr and user tagging and comments has filtered down to Council management in a practical sense – for example, adding blogging to workplans. Or rostering time for outreach (surfing the net, serendipity).

Then there’s all those great temporary exhibitions in libraries curated by local history librarians that are not captured in digital form.

But there’s a way around obstructionist IT staff, overworked webmasters and harried library managers.

Continued...

— b3rn   libraries, wikis   Sep 12, 11:26 PM   #   Comment