Library websites

So what makes a good library website? I took a course this summer about Web usability and design. We learned a lot about web usability and what makes a good website overall (Do what users expect). We also learned a lot from Jakob Nielson and his book, Prioritizing Web Usability,  however the class was so general that we didn't step in specifically and look at library websites. So this fall, myself, Dr. Anthony Chow and Patricia Commander are going to try to answer the question of what makes a good library website by looking at and evaluating a sampling of public and academic websites. I am really excited.
I also found this article today from Lorcan Dempsey's Weblog about the 3 stages of library websites. I wonder if what he found is also what we will find. And I want to check out NCSU's library page. Hopefully it will be as good as he says!

Are Libraries just for the Have-Nots?

In fall 2009, I was teaching high school and I surveyed all 65 of my students at a small private Christian school in Charlotte, NC about their thoughts about libraries. A couple of different students commented on the survey that they didn’t use the library, but they did think libraries are important for the less fortunate. Is that all that libraries are good for? Do most Americans see libraries as being just for the poor? Do the rich see them that way? Obviously these students thought they had access to all the information they needed, they had internet at home (and also most likely on their cell phone), could buy whatever books they needed, and could either download or buy whatever movies and music they wanted to. And honestly I sometimes wonder if the public library is really an institution mainly for the less-fortunate. I use my public library often to check out materials and to go there to read. I don’t use it for internet access because I can afford that at home. I use it to check out materials, because I can’t afford to buy them all.


School and academic libraries to me are clearly NOT just for the poor, because they both have important missions of teaching their students how to evaluate, find, and choose worthy information sources. Additionally academic libraries have access to tons of journals and articles that students need for their research, that it would be silly most of the time for a student to buy those articles and journals (unless everything went to a pay per article format). In the case of academic libraries students need the library because through the library is their only way to access these useful sources of information.

But public libraries… is it sacrilegious to say that I think the lower and middle classes probably use them much more often than the upper classes. Really for these classes the public library is an essential service. Please don’t misunderstand, I think public libraries are wonderful and awesome and should be a mandated service of the government because they provide services to all and in many cases help equal the playing field when it comes to access to information. But I am not sure that the rich in America need public libraries. They can get internet now in Starbucks or even McDonalds, many bookstores are now holding weekly story times… So are libraries just for the have-nots? Or just mostly for the have-nots?

Librarian Movies

The Huffington Post wrote this article on August 16, and I knew I had to share it. It features the top 11 movies with librarians in them. Obviously Music Man with Marion the Librarian is the first. I love (and own) that movie. Now I need to go back and watch some of the others....

I want an e-reader

I feel left behind. I really want to be a hip young librarian in the know. However, while still going to school I obviously am not making a ton of money working only part time. Therefore I am not rich, and cannot afford an e-reader. But I would really really like one! Why? My family asks and my husband asks, why do you need an e-reader. Paper books and magazines work just fine. And the simple answer is well not so simple. I could say that I want one for the convenience, because that is true, or so that I carry less books around with me and that is also true. But I think the real reason is that I want to be with current technology and the library world is started to use and embrace e-readers and e-books. Yes, they are still a small part of the book market, but that portion is growing.
Library Journal is hosting a webinar soon solely about e-books, many large and medium sized library systems now have e-books to check out. A library director who I interviewed a YEAR AGO, was using e-readers as an essential part of the class he was teaching. But finally and most importantly for me, I have started to actually have practical uses for one. I have started to find e-books in my email inbox, to sign up for on LibraryThing and seen advertisements for free downloads of some classics. Just today I got an email previewing some new titles of books coming out this fall. (so exciting, I am still new enough that free books in any shape or form are still awesome to me and I still pretend to have time to read them). One of these new titles you could download the first chapter to preview and read! But for me reading long things on the computer is difficult, I much prefer to sit in a nice oversize comfy chair and read. And I am too cheap to print out 32 pages of this book. So what would be the perfect solution? An e-reader, but well I don't have one. So I am stuck with either reading uncomfortably from my computer screen or spending the money on ink and paper and printing out 32 pages......

At the moment I am feeling cheap, so the computer screen it is, but oh How I want an E-Reader. I am not picky at the moment, Kindle, Nook, IPad, any will do... :)