Public Library’s Online Presence

I was lucky enough to hear David Lee King speak on Tuesday about public libraries and technology with a focus on how to create a positive customer experience in the library as well as online.  David Lee King  is the Digital Services Director at the Topeka – Shawnee County Public Library.  This library is interesting in that the county is served by one main library with a number of bookmobile stops throughout the county on a weekly basis.  Many of the county’s residents use the library’s website more frequently (I would assume) than in other areas.  For more information about David, check out his website or the library where he works!

The library where I work has a website and we have a Facebook page, we haven’t ventured yet into the Twitter-verse or into Pinterest or YouTube.  This is due partly to waiting to hear our digital policy from the township and partly because like many libraries – we’re scared of the unknown.  I’m the youngest person on our regular staff by at least ten years and probably the only one on Twitter.  I’ve been very focused over the summer on providing a positive experience in the library and after listening to David, I realized that I have been ignoring our online presence for too long.

Our website was just re-made a few years ago – unfortunately the library website is now under the umbrella of the township making our design a little inhibited.  We are required to use specific font, colors, and design so when the website was shifted to this new company, the information was mostly just moved over, without having been reorganized or redesigned.  It is now very apparent that we need to do some redesign to make our website more customer friendly.  Luckily, in my graduate assistantship, I worked with the university library on usability studies and learned a lot about designing a website.  So wish me luck as I begin this HUGE undertaking in the next couple of months!