Give the Gift of Libraries

Some years ago, when my extended family still held their annual Christmas draw, I request that instead of a gift my name-holder make a donation in my name to the charity of their choice. My uncle, an incredibly kind and intelligent school teacher, made a donation on my behalf to the St. Paul Municipal Library. This was long before I even considered becoming a librarian.

The holidays are great time to remind people that they can give the gift of libraries. Along with making a donation to the library, patrons can also purchase library vouchers for friends and family to get their own library cards. You may remember that Chinook Arch created of these last year for just such a purpose.

Libraries can also reap the benefits of the holidays with donations of recently purchased books. I now personally that the fewer books I have around my house the better, so it doesn’t hurt to mention to patrons that the library is always happy to receive new paperbacks or bestsellers they have finished. Of course, it is up to every library to decide individually if they would like to receive such donations.

And lastly, in this season of materialism and overspending, library cards are a minimalistic super-deal in the grand scheme of things. Instead of purchasing that one item that will cost at least $20.00 at Chapters, talk up how a library card gives you access to over 800,000 items in the Chinook Arch system alone. But don’t just sell it to you patrons. Chat it up to your friends, family, the folks at the grocery store or the local historical society. Let your community know that the library can be a great gift to them and their community and let your spirit shine through. Seasons greetings to all!

Post-Launch Program

With the launch of 33 new websites and BiblioCommons instances this week, many of you are likely wondering what we could possibly still have to do regarding your library’s website. In a word – plenty!

Although the sites have gone live, it will always be an ongoing process to refine them. At this moment, we are working hard to set up Google Analytics for every website and BiblioCommons instance to gather data about online visits. During the month of January, I am planning to do hands-on user testing to determine how to make your sites even more user friendly. Furthermore, we are hoping that user comments from BiblioCommons will provide more insight into what we can do better.

From this information, we are hoping to make small, iterative changes over time. Many of the most heavily used website today, like Facebook and Twitter, make tiny changes all the time. BiblioCommons does this as well. In the middle of our orientation sessions in November, they made a major change from “My Collection” to “My Shelves.” You will likely notice in the next little while that BiblioCommons will be changing “My Lists” to “My Shared Guides.”

The other side of this plan is that while training many of you to use the software to edit your own websites, it will be additionally helpful to you to keep the structure of the original website. This way, when I conduct user testing and gather results, I can more easily apply them to your website to improve it. Some libraries will definitely have specific needs that will require them to make more pages, but the more similar the websites are, the better I can assist all you.

In the meantime, I hope you are all enjoying your new websites and BiblioCommons. I think we are all looking forward to a better, more effective online library experience in the New Year.

Overdrive Cheat Sheet for Library Users

This morning, Overdrive's "Digital Library Blog" posted a link to a cheat sheet on compatible e-book devices for library patrons.  Since e-readers are among the top ten items on Christmas wish lists this year, this cheat sheet will definitely help your patrons choose the perfect, library-compatible gifts.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Christmas clean-up!

Gee, where did December suddenly come from?! This year seems to have flown by! In any case, it's finally here and many libraries may notice a similar thing: business slows down. I'm not sure if this is entirely true for everyone, but a lot of libraries may notice that not as many people are coming through your doors this month...so why not take advantage of this less busy time and take on one of the many projects you've been putting off? How about finally weeding that nonfiction collection? Or doing an inventory of your picture books? You could always shelf read to make sure your materials are tidy and in order for the new year! Just a few ideas to get you started. What other projects are you working on? Is there anything we here at Chinook Arch can do to help you with it?