PLA 2006: The New Branch? What is the Role of the Library Web Site?

Who is the target audience of your library’s website?  It’s based on demographics, but you need to consider if the website addresses the “haves” vs. the “have-nots.”  Historically, libraries have not looked at the “haves” when it comes to website functionality.  This needs to change.

Remote access is increasing faster than the walk-in count is increasing in library buildings.  Phoenix Public Library usage remotely increased over 2000% in the last six years, while walk-ins increased only 24%.

The library’s website should reach 100% of the users, be a full service site, need no instructions to use, and be intuitive, fast, easy, and convenient.

Is the website a tool for librarians?  No.  That approach leaves librarians as the gatekeeper, the holder of secrets.

Who are the public library’s website competitors?  Google, Yahoo, Amazon, B&N, Borders….not other libraries.  We should learn from each other.

What are the risks of not providing full web service functionality.  Libraries risk becoming irrelevant or at least of marginal value in their communities.  The public will find other ways of making some things work for themselves (e.g. LibraryElf).  We should be doing these things for them.

Some things to think about when planning for a full-service website
• Offer enhanced searching: guided navigation
• FRBR
• Online updating of patron accounts (address, phone number)
• Online fee payment
• Self-circulating library book lists (community-created)
• Online reporting of lost or stolen cards
• Enabling device-friendly account notifications
• Enable online library donations
• Real-time online library card registration with address verification and instant access to information resources and materials
• Good exploratory search interfaces (enhance user control, instantly orient searchers, what they see and what they know is good enough to navigate them around the site, expose a roadmap to the site) – organize by meaningful stable categories, provide categorized overviews, provide sample documents for eah category, arrange important text first for fast scanning, support multiple categories, support many kinds of visual displays)

We must meet users where they are—and most of them are online, not in our physical libraries.  Many of our users are coming from places other than our jurisdictions. How do we serve these users?  Online, people don’t think about jurisdictional issues and want to use our resources.

Things to Offer
• One thing you can do really well online is serve diverse audiences—directed pages at specific populations (language, age, interest area).
• One thing you absolutely need for an online branch is to offer circulating materials: downloadable books, audio books, movies, and music.  Provide access to the free full text and eBooks online as well (not just the for-pay items).
• Should have someone online (staff) to offer patrons a real person to contact, either through web-based chat or instant messaging.
• Offer specific newsletters that people can subscribe to—through both RSS and e-mail.  You’re providing information to your customers directly and not requiring them to come to you.
• Events for virtual libraries: promoting events in the branches but also providing events online through podcasts,
• Denver offers a Google MashUp Map showing where their branches are, allowing users to zoom in, get directions, etc.

Staffing
• What department is your website staff a part of? 
• What are the job titles? 
• How many staff members support the virtual branch as compared to the physical branches? 
• Is virtual reference handled by your reference staff? 
• Is e-resource collection development handled by staff who regularly deal with collection development, or just the “techies” because the resources happen to be online? 
• Are your website staff MLS holders? 
• Do they receive adequate training opportunities, including library technology conferences, coding language courses, and technology summits & conferences? 

Be conscious of usable language for our users: catalog vs. search, databases vs. find articles. 

Usability testing is essential—find out what the problem areas with the site are and do this while in the process of a redesign—not after you’ve finalized everything.

Define the purpose of your website: is it a method for distributing information or a way for people to connect with each other?  Both?  Does your website reflect that?

Reach out to the community online: get into MySpace and other community sites.

Look at your website visits vs. physical visits to your buildings.  Look at eBook circulation vs. physical circulation.  Do these compare with your smaller locations?  If so, are you devoting the staff, attention, and oversight that the website needs?

Marketing your website
• Does your website have a discrete name, brand, and logo? 
• Get a usable domain and create a logo and use them consistently. 
• Start with a brand. 
• Create printed materials as well—bookmarks, library cards. 
• Create e-mail newsletters. 
• Consider an “e-mail this page” option on all your pages. 
• Promote via articles, television, and radio. 
• Send out RSS feeds, including podcasts. 
• Post to other sites, linking back to yours. 
• Collaborate with other organizations to create joint pages—double the user base, double the publicity reach.

The second half of the presentation is available at http://denverlibrary.org/presentations