Comments on: The future of Web Services isn’t the Library website

By: Aline

Aline — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:02:27 +0000

Hi Karen, I also wonder if eventually the tools to do this kind of thing will be as ubiquitous as the currently-existing tools for static sites. Itâ€™s a dream, anyway, and might come too late to save us. ,

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:11:28 +0000

How is the Library website design going, Karen. Most Web design usability arguments are waste of your time. All web users are unique. There are no average users. There are no simple â€œrightâ€ answers for most Web design questions. What works is a well-integrated design that fills a need, carefully thought out, well executed and tested.

By: George Pearson

George Pearson — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 21:34:33 +0000

A dead-on analysis, Karen. Working on a state OPAC committee, I’ve become progressively radicalized on the issue of library web pages, databases, and opacs. What most librarians have a hard time grasping is that the war is over, and the library web page lost. We’ve done surveys to see what users are doing on our library computers. The library web page, databases, and catalog are used about 3% of the time. The percentages for people who don’t come to the library are no doubt even lower.

Even if we could develop a library web page as simple, social, and enjoyable as Amazon (not likely), nothing would change. Users have moved on; the library not where they start a search for information. We need to get our content out to where they do, and fast.

By: Laura Cohen

Laura Cohen — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 13:38:35 +0000

Excellent post, Karen. If our sites are to survive – and this is questionable in my mind, too – they need to become community sites, and be lightweight, mobile, mashable…everything they are not. I wonder if eventually the tools to do this kind of thing will be as ubiquitous as the currently-existing tools for static sites. It’s a dream, anyway, and might come too late to save us.

This past summer I wrote a blog posting, The End of Web Design. I think you’d relate to it!

By: dsa

dsa — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 18:27:26 +0000

I couldn’t agree more with almost everything you write here; in fact, this post was pointed out to me by someone who works for me and noted the similarity in tone and argument to my own comments. What pains me no end is that I, and many others, still work in organizations where many of those in positions to set tone and change directions (read: deans, directors, department heads) are still quite capable of fixing their gaze firmly on their navels and ignoring the changing world around them. Sure, they talk 2.0, and they love repeating platitudes about Net Gen students and how the library needs to be where the action is, yada yada yada. How many of them, however, are ready to leap headlong into the future, e.g.- go with an OS ILS, say no to vendor-driven metasearch/metawhatever tools, abandon original cataloging, etc. Not many, at least not in larger academic libraries. So, we’re stuck creating band-aids for dysfunctional vendor products and tweaking the library’s Website, when, in fact, that Website is largely irrelevant these days.