Library Automation System

Ok, so I obviously got way ahead of myself and did next week's assignment and skipped this week's assignment altogether! Aggghhh! We opened our show, "Godspell", this week, and keeping track of my life has obviously been a fruitless effort. Anyway, on to library automation systems. Our district uses Sirsi in all of its libraries, but we are currently in the process of re-evaluating the system and considering switching over to Montana Shared Catalog. Because I'm not officially a librarian yet, I haven't been able to attend all the meetings regarding the switch, but I am aware of some of the weaknesses in our current system. It's a great system for checking in and out books, placing holds on materials, etc., but it does not have a very effective search component. I often have to try three or four different queries to pull up materials pertaining to a specific subject. It doesn't keep a history of checkouts, so students can't tell if they've checked out a particular book before or not. I was told this is for privacy reasons. Is that true in your libraries? We can use Sirsi to inventory and print circulation reports, but our collection analyzation is processed through Follett. One benefit to Sirsi is the ability to look up collections at other schools and request interlibrary loans. We do not yet have the capability to place holds online, but I believe we just received a facebook app for our catalog last week. It was suggested that we put the app on our website and students will be able to access the catalog and place holds on books. The only problem with this is that students will need to do it at home because the filters at school are too restrictive and students can't visit facebook, even if it's a teacher page. The program also generates overdue notices, monthly item and circulation stats, and several other reports that we rarely use. I am hoping that whatever we switch too is a bit more intuitive for the user, has a better search component, and is more easily accessible to our patrons.

MontanaLibrary2Go

Montana Library2Go is easily accessible through the Montana Public Library online catalog and is fairly self-explanatory. The Overdrive software has to be downloaded onto the computer that you are using before any books or audiobooks can be downloaded. Overdrive seems to work just fine on a PC, but I had a really hard time getting it to work on my Mac. I downloaded the app on to my iPad, and while it downloaded a Kindle version of a book just fine, I couldn’t download any of the audiobooks that stated they were compatible with iPods. In the past I’ve had to download audio books to the school PC, transfer it to iTunes, and then load it on to my iPod. It turned into quite the laborious process, and I think that I will probably have to do the same thing with my iPad if I want to have audio books available there as well.

I first started using Montana Library2Go last year, and it seemed that most of the books I was interested in were available, or only had a short waiting period. This week when I went in to investigate, nearly everything besides Boxcar Children had 2 to 6 holds pending!

Because of the growing popularity of audio books and e-readers, we have considered purchasing e-readers for our library, and we’ve also discussed figuring out a way to work with the Missoula Public Library to make it easier for students to access the MPL materials. Earlier this year we started a dialogue with the public library, suggesting that a librarian come to our school to talk with students and get them signed up for a library card. For whatever reason, the public library seems hesitant to engage with us in that way, and we have not moved forward with the effort. Several students would make good use of the e-books and audio books but they will never make it to the public library to sign up for a card.

We are still researching e-readers in regards to best purchases, lending policies, etc. I believe the librarians had it narrowed down to Kindles as our top choice, but as the lending policies are still being written by the companies themselves, there’s a lot of grey area regarding the ethical and legal use of electronic materials. We still don’t really know what the cost or availability would be in the long run, since we don’t know how many copies we need to purchase of each book, and how many devices can have the same book at the same time. We currently lend iPods with iTunes audio books pre-loaded on them, but every student has to sign a loan agreement promising to pay for lost materials, and the iPods only check out for two weeks.

Weebly

            I didn’t have to search long to find a site builder that grabbed my attention. Weebly.com was named one of Time’s best website builders in 2007, and the site they’ve built to promote themselves is great. Several of the free or cheap website builders required you to sign up with a domain before explaining anything about itself. Weebly has tutorial after tutorial available for perusal before you sign up for anything. There are 100+ professional themes, the ability to load your own photos, host a photo gallery, embed a survey page, etc. Weebly creates a mobile-friendly version of your site so people can easily interact with it on their mobile device, such as a phone or a tablet. If you are an html whiz, you can completely redesign the site to make it look and feel exactly the way you want it to. Your domain name is hosted for free. The BBC published a favorable report about Weebly, although they noted that you’d have to pay if you want a personalized domain name.

            I was so taken by the presentation for a Weebly site that I signed up and started working on my own. I didn’t have enough time to refine my site this week, but from the few times I logged in, it appears that the platform is very easy to work with. The real challenge is knowing what to put into your website!

Website Design

According to the Web Marketing Association (www.webaward.org), there are seven criteria you should look for in a highly competent school website. Each year the WMA names the Best School web site as part of the annual WebAward Competition according to these criteria. The seven criteria are as follows;   

• Design   
• Ease of use
• Copywriting
• Interactivity
• Use of technology
• Innovation
• Content

I agree with all of these, but my top two concerns would be content and clarity, i.e. ease of use. Design and ease of use are interwoven. The design of the site needs to be instinctive and clear. Buttons should be in obvious positions on the site, and links should be working. Most of us naturally look for a directory or map of the site either running across the top of the page, or in a column on the side. The site should be aesthetically pleasing and engaging, but shouldn’t have so much frill and fancy on it that it distracts or confuses the user. Parents, students, and staff will be the main users, and they will want clear directions to one specific place on the site each time they visit. Having the site organized into these three distinct sections is an excellent beginning point.

The WBA award was given to Wheaton College  in 2010, and the site is very appealing, although there is no option to skip the opening graphics. The timeline layout is very easy to navigate, and when you scroll over the pictures there’s a handy little bubble that pops up letting you know what to expect when you click the link.

Ohio State’s Stone Laboratory  website is entertaining and colorful, and listed on vandelaydesign.com’s blog as one of the top 25 websites for schools. The navigation buttons are at the top of the page, as expected, but the space between the nav and the body of the site is unreasonably long. The body of the site contains many more links to pertinent or entertaining information.

Both of these sites are easy to navigate, and contain the necessary information. Our own school website,  is an extension of the district website. It’s a bare bones site with most of the links in the body of the site. Aesthetically it has much to be desired, and the links need to be more definitively organized. Students often need help navigating the site in order to find the teacher’s pages because the info isn’t obvious enough. The site lacks clarity, but does contain the necessary content.

HTML Practice!

safari safari safari

RSS Feeds

The RSS feed may be the best discovery yet of this whole class. I have subscribed to five knitting blogs already...yes, I'm a bit obsessed with knitting. What a handy tool, one reader in one place! I can't wait to start subscribing to the feeds of all the sites I regularly visit. I was able to subscribe to UMWestern news, but it took a little bit of doing on my ipad. The platform is different, so the buttons are in different places, or sometimes not there at all.

Ok, here's a win for technology. Last week I attended class, via chat room, while I was in rehearsal for a show. Between the hours of eight and nine, I chatted with my class while a carried my iPad around the room to the various places we had to be for our scenes. Talk about multitasking!!!