My top 10 criteria for an effective Library 2.0 website.

After reading Brian Mathews - Web Design Matters: the top 10 for libraries, Louis Lazaris - Designing Websites for Kids: Trends and best practices and John McBernie - Your online identity: Key to marketing and being found. I have formulated my own top ten key library site design features.

1. Promotion  there should be space for announcements about upcoming events and new services include blog tailored to your communities interest.

2. The layout should be dynamic and use cascaded menu templates to keep the visual appearance of clean and clutter free. The placement of most recent content should be in the top portion of the screen.

3. Use of banners and photos to break up text as no one likes to read reams linked text. Graphical elements such as photos help to visually break up a web page making it easier on the eyes.

4. Include familiar symbols as navigation tools on the website such as arrows and icons. All call to action areas should be navigable to in no more than 2 clicks.

5. Make it easy ask questions receive and receive a response. Arrange your website template so that in a prominent place contact details are distinctly displayed. Include other chat and communication technologies such as Twitter, Instant Chat, and Facebook etc. to create communication with your community and a sense of trust.

6.  The search functions on the website should be easily navigated to from the library's home page. Consider a federated search screen with the ability to filter results by genre, format type and year of creation.

7. Allow library members to contribute reviews about items they have borrowed or services they have used.

8. Create areas on the Library website for teens and children then tailor the content for these age groups.

9. Make apps available via your library website to access library services and search the catalogue. As increasingly customers are accessing services on the web through mobile platforms such as smart phones and tablets.

10. Optimize the library website design for accessibility by disabled people.

So let's evaluate the Queanbeyan City Council website against these criteria and see how meets them or if more changes are required.

When I visited the site on the 13/12/12 there wasn't an actual section on the home page that said announcements and policy changes. Just a note about the library having moved to a new building recently. I would have liked to see upcoming events announcements with the ability to subscribe to an RSS Feed for this section.

The home page style was very basic and not very engaging - just quick links for the basic library functions such as searching the catalogue, using electronic reference and navigation to the children's page. This site could be made more engaging with photos of actual library activities, a menu classified according to customer demographics. Although the basic style of the site is very clean and easy to use with one click - just not interesting as a destination.

QCC Libraries definitely needs to cultivate an online social media presence to reach out to customers. There was no chat service, Facebook or Twitter account links displayed only the ability to share page links using Share This.   I only found an email address and telephone contact details for the staff. Adding social media tools would help to capture a wider geographic and demographic customer base as this area as the population expands.

While it was easy to find the catalogue, the search interface would benefit from an upgrade to a one stop  search interface. Having to query for videos, music and books separately and uses more time than is required. At this time the website has no ability to incorporate reviews about library materials and services. QCC Libraries would benefit from this by customers having a user centric medium to drive service innovation and collection development.

The QCC Library service also needs to incorporate a specific children's  and teen's section to the website. While it addresses the need to provide information on what services are available to families it's not presented in a way that children would find interesting. It is important to engage children with online library services to encourage resource discovery and reading skills during their formative years of education. Here you could include a blog about the latest children and teen resources releases, invite children to write a review and include author talks. Perhaps invite an author to have a tweet session with fans via the library page or a homework help instant reference service. Also provide video feeds of author visits for children who couldn't attend the meet the author sessions via YouTube.

Once laptops were what the general public were using to access the web. Now the mobile revolution has hit with IPads, Android Tablets, Smart Phones. Library sites need to provide an optimized way to access their content. As yet QCC Libraries has not advertised on it's site that there are apps available for Apple, Windows or Android devices. I would recommend that's something they should look at doing in the future.

Although not mentioned in any of the articles by Mathews, Lazaris and McBernie websites especially for library services should be compliant with accessibility standards. As disabled members of the community need to access library services too. While I had no opportunity to test whether the QCC Library site was compliant it was evident that the pages could be read by a text to speach reader such as ISpeach and Microsoft Text to Speach Reader.

So there are my recommendations for changes to the QCC Library Website. These changes will enable the service engage with their clients in a user centric way. Creating trust  and continuous  improvement in partnership with their local community whom they serve.

References:

[1] Lazaris, L. (2009). Designing websites for kids: Trends and best practices, Smashing Magazine, (27 November). Retrieved from http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/11/27/designing-websites-for-kids-trends-and-best-practices/

 [2] Mathews, B. (2009). Web design matters: Ten essentials for any library site. Library Journal, (15 February). Retrieved from http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6634712.html?industryid=47126

[3] McBurnie, J. (2007). Your online identity: Key to marketing and being found. FUMSI, (October). Retrieved from http://web.fumsi.com/go/article/share/2510