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March 13, 2007
Hennepin County Library's Book Space
Hennepin County Library, a library that knows how to create a thriving online space, has started an online book community. HCPL's Book Space is a place where users can do anything and everything related to books:
- create their own account for Book Space
- sign up for e-mail alerts on new books
- get daily book excerpts via e-mail
- listen to audio eBooks
- create book lists
- browse subjects and genres to find good books
- get e-mail and RSS feed updates on new books
- post comments about what they're reading
- find book events and book clubs
- sign up for Book Space eNews
HCPL was very smart and got a good domain name, bookspace.org, for their new site. I think that domain names are a vastly underutilized option in libraries. We all stick iwth our library websites, and ask users to remember something like: www.co.library.state.us/books/homepage.html. Very silly indeed. Simplify things with a good domain name! And for a stellar page like this, with so many useful services integrated into one place, I predict huge success and a wildly enthusiastic public reception. I will definitely be looking back at this site as I develop our new website's books section!
March 13, 2007 | Permalink
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Comments
I was just thinking about this last week - why are libraries seemingly so reticent to utilize other domain names? I think Hennepin did a good thing - their logo is bright and catches your eye so you know they have something to do with the site, but I think most people if they saw it would not think of this as a typical "library" site - which is sorta sad to say.
I wonder if they would release this code or allow other libraries to use it as a base for building a similar site - then you could build sanmateo.bookspace.org, etc.
Posted by: cj | March14, 2007
