Don't Judge a Book by its Cover
YAY FOR LIS 753!!! I have thorougly enjoyed reading the blogs and learning about everything from law libraries to archives, to the role of a school librarian. After reading so many good entries by my collegues, on so many good topics, I realized I have yet to include an entry about a specific library-related topic :^0. As a librarian, one of my interests, completely unrelated, is general technology use. As a member of the biblioblogosphere, I am going to blog this day forward about library-related topics, and disperse my intermitent, fun, techno-information in between!
I went to a conference last Fall, in which one librarian stated:
"The website is the library's new front door."
How true! What does the front door to your library look like? Is it welcoming? Do you have enough signage, or in the case of the web, logical links and ideas? The web presence sets the tone for the experience one may receive at the actual library. It's also an interesting juxtaposition that the web encourages the use of physical books. One library I have visited in the past, which shall remain nameless, has a beautiful, well designed website. The actual, physical library is very plain, not well updated, and poorly managed. Not what I was expecting. Very sad actually. After seeing the online presentation, I thought "WOW! THIS LIBRARY WILL BE EXCELLENT!!"
I got the impression the library was low on funding for the physical building rennovation, but in the meantime placed funding in the advancement of web design to fulfill user needs.
I understand having a great website does not replace having superior service and well maintained stacks, but the library's understanding of the importance of the website seemed like a great marketing strategy to get the users through the door, regardless of the fact it may be falling off its hinges. Could the website give a different impression of the library than what it actually offers? Is this good or bad? I'd almost argue good, but the problem would be whether or not the users or patrons would stay. The retention level may decline if the people keep using the website but are unimpressed with the library's performance. I bet in some cases there are people who use the library ONLY through the web, and ONLY enter the physical library to take out books. Do we have two categories of library users now? I know we have MANY kinds of library users, but do you think there are web-only users and building-only users? Something to think about.
The other day I visited the Lake Forest Public Library . I like the catalogue. Love the catalogue. I understand more libraries are taking the approach of displaying tiny images of book covers. I found the interface to be fun, especially to encourage children to read. Looking at lists entries and pages of bibliographic information could get dull. However, the quote, "Don't judge a book by its cover" still rings true. Even online, the content can still be judged based on images and digital graphics. Just something to think about. :)
I went to a conference last Fall, in which one librarian stated:
"The website is the library's new front door."
How true! What does the front door to your library look like? Is it welcoming? Do you have enough signage, or in the case of the web, logical links and ideas? The web presence sets the tone for the experience one may receive at the actual library. It's also an interesting juxtaposition that the web encourages the use of physical books. One library I have visited in the past, which shall remain nameless, has a beautiful, well designed website. The actual, physical library is very plain, not well updated, and poorly managed. Not what I was expecting. Very sad actually. After seeing the online presentation, I thought "WOW! THIS LIBRARY WILL BE EXCELLENT!!"
I got the impression the library was low on funding for the physical building rennovation, but in the meantime placed funding in the advancement of web design to fulfill user needs.
I understand having a great website does not replace having superior service and well maintained stacks, but the library's understanding of the importance of the website seemed like a great marketing strategy to get the users through the door, regardless of the fact it may be falling off its hinges. Could the website give a different impression of the library than what it actually offers? Is this good or bad? I'd almost argue good, but the problem would be whether or not the users or patrons would stay. The retention level may decline if the people keep using the website but are unimpressed with the library's performance. I bet in some cases there are people who use the library ONLY through the web, and ONLY enter the physical library to take out books. Do we have two categories of library users now? I know we have MANY kinds of library users, but do you think there are web-only users and building-only users? Something to think about.
The other day I visited the Lake Forest Public Library . I like the catalogue. Love the catalogue. I understand more libraries are taking the approach of displaying tiny images of book covers. I found the interface to be fun, especially to encourage children to read. Looking at lists entries and pages of bibliographic information could get dull. However, the quote, "Don't judge a book by its cover" still rings true. Even online, the content can still be judged based on images and digital graphics. Just something to think about. :)
posted by Gwyneth at 7:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home