Arapahoe Library District Website Updates

Find movies by ratings!

2011-11-08T08:15:00.002-07:00

You talked, we listened! You can now search for movies by ratings! On the website, under the Movies tab in the Browse box there is a link called Movies By Ratings. Click on this to open the choices, Rated G, Rated PG, Rated PG-13 and Rated R. They will be shown in order by newest first.

We hope this feature is useful to you!

Help when you need it

2011-10-19T08:59:00.003-06:00

You can now find a Help link under the Search box on the website. It has actually been there awhile but just not noted on this blog til now. Clicking on Help takes you to a list of ways you can contact us - whatever is most convenient!

Additionally, a link was just added which provides some tips for better search results.

Hope this is helpful information to you!

Self Help becomes DIY

2011-10-04T14:51:00.007-06:00

What????? In the Research & Databases area of the website, one of the Browse facets used to be named Self Help. A staff person thought that we would be providing psychology-related databases (and possibly an eCouch!). Lo and behold, we place databases there such as:

So, we have changed the name and it is now referred to as DIY. Do you think this is more descriptive of the offerings? Are you a regular user of any of these databases?

Research & Databases Page

2011-09-16T08:03:00.002-06:00

The Research & Databases page provides a feature story highlighting some aspect of the business or nonfiction collection. In the carousel boxes, we have books and databases featured. When you click in the left Browse box, you are taken to a list view of databases. We have fixed or at least made a positive change on this page. When you now click on a title, you are taken to another page. Unfortunately it does not provide you any more information than what was on your previous page. The good news is that there is a Connect Now button so that you can enter the database.

This is one of the functions of our content management system whereby a title is clickable. A small change, but a positive one nonetheless!

Contact Us link changes

2011-06-27T12:30:00.002-06:00

were made today in response to our new Answer Squad service. In order to consolidate the various ways the public can contact us, a new Contact Us page was created. Links in some pages (such as Interlibrary Loan and Using Computers) now go to the new page instead of to the How are we doing page.

With the new Answer Squad service, patrons can type in their questions to see if an answer is already in the system or they can text us with questions at 303-720-7832.

Russian Page Changes

2011-06-15T08:49:00.002-06:00

Today, with the magic of code and talented staff changes were made to the Russian page:

you now see a graphic for the feature story instead of image and text. This falls more in line with other interior page looks. The feature story link goes to a list of Russian titles recently received.
the top carousel has 2 links. unless you can read Russian you won't know that the first one says Coming Soon and the 2nd link says Katya Recommends.
on the Coming Soon page, there is a list of facets on the left which are relevant subject headings. As new titles are added, this list will grow.

Changes were made to improve the backend work of providing new titles for Russian-speaking patrons. We now have the ability to pull in material covers, too, which were previously unaccessible to us.

Computer class handouts online

2011-05-11T12:19:00.000-06:00

This was completed a couple of months ago but forgotten about. You now have the ability to download our computer class handouts! On the Programs & Classes page, click on Adults in the Browse box to find the link. As of this writing there is only one handout, for Picasa, available. But, look in the future for more of these treasures!

Did You See?

2011-04-18T10:12:00.003-06:00

On the Books, Movies, Music, OnDemand and Research & Business pages we have made a large change. You now see the feature story presented graphically. From the screenshot you see here, the Celebrate Children's Poetry is an example.

In keeping with the theme of the site, this design change was made to better fit with the look of the page.

Hope you enjoy!

Research & Databases Update

2011-04-12T14:12:00.003-06:00

Today changes were made to the Research & Databases page. The top carousel/box now has a header which is a nice description of what you will find contained in this box. Thanx to our Communications Department for helping us with the name! Next to the title you will see a link called "business" and a link called "databases"

The "business" link takes you to a list of recent titles and further navigation to business resources available from ALD. Find the link to Suzanne Kaller's business blog or Kathleen Rainwater's twitter. Access business databases and find titles in our catalog.

We hope these changes are useful for the businessperson to find and access our rich array of business resources.

March Changes Made

2011-03-03T17:18:00.001-07:00

In the footer, the Contact Us and How are we doing links now go to an intermediary page which describes the customer surveys and provides links in different languages. You can also click to ask questions specifically about your account, ask a reference question, or suggest, comment or question.

End of February Changes to the Website

2011-02-25T14:32:00.003-07:00

Exciting changes have been happening with the website!

When you click on Staff Picks in any of the Browse boxes you will now see the page has changed from an alphabetical list by staff pick name to a list of popular genres, age ranges and formats. Thanks go to the Communications Department for the wonderful graphics and to the Alyson and Jill for putting the page together. When you click on an icon you see a presentation of handpicked titles. The Staff Picks page still does have staff names presented, if the staff person has provided a review within the last 60 days.

Look for a new search in Movies – Family Friendly. This list presents G and PG rated movies and was added based on demand.

We hope you enjoy these changes!

February Changes

2011-02-18T16:04:00.001-07:00

On the homepage you will see the large story box is or will be by February 22 changed over to a graphics box. The graphics will move in slideshow fashion. Clicking on the graphic will take the user to more content. The smaller box on the home page is now graphics based and clicking on this will take the user to more content, also.

Many of the links have been changed on the Browse pages in Books, Movies, Music, Russian and Spanish. Most of these links are now canned searches instead of feeds from III. We had multiple reasons for making these changes. In the Books, Movies and Music pages we evaluated the use of each link and removed links which were not being well-used. Our other consideration was removing feeds from III where possible in order to improve the performance of the III server.

In the footer under Community, a new link has been added, Patron Survey Results. Here users can find results of the DVD Vending Survey. Other survey results will be populated in this area.

January Changes

2011-02-18T15:59:00.002-07:00

Updates made during January to the website include:

1. The navigation formerly entitled Research & Business is now renamed Research & Databases to reflect the database content and navigation found on this page.

2. The OnDemand page has experienced back-end changes. The result is the top carousel contains imags with links to services such as the downloadables. Anytime you see a database in the carousel, it is going to direct you to the list of databases page rather than to the "Connect Now" link. This is due to the library card authentication which is a requirement with most of our electronic products.

Enhancements for January 2011

2011-01-18T11:14:00.006-07:00

It has been awhile since the last blog post - happy new year, readers!

To let you know a few minor tweaks which have taken place on the website:

1. The navigation formerly entitled Research & Business is now renamed Research & Databases. This title more accurately reflects the content contained within the page.

2. The OnDemand page has experienced back-end changes. The result is the top carousel contains images with links to services such as the downloadables. Anytime you see a database in the carousel, it is going to direct you to the list of databases. Find the database you are interested in and "connect now" from here. Because most of our vendors require a library card for entry into the product, the "connect now" has to happen at this point of entry.

As always, feel free to leave comments or ask questions here. And in celebration of 2011, the Year of the Rabbit, today's image gives you a bunny image!

Chug, chug, chug

2010-11-17T09:33:00.003-07:00

No not the drinking kind of chug but the train kind of chug....as in rolling along! We have stabilized our processes for importing records. For you, it means that you are seeing more complete information when you conduct a search.

What kinds of information you ask? Well, the title's annotation is the main piece where we want to present this sooner than later (if the annotation is not there, you see a standard line which says "this item has limited information but you can still place a hold on it").

We hope this helps; please let us know if there is more information you would like to see when you conduct searches!

Feeling the change?

2010-10-12T09:48:00.004-06:00

Amidst the gorgeous fall leaves, the weather is turning. I had to dig for my raincoat this morning and the radio reports snow falling in Loveland. Being a native Coloradoan, I should be used to this by now but I never seem to be prepared for the change to colder weather!

Speaking of changes, a couple of updates to report on the blog.

1. This blog will no longer be posting every week. Changes have not been occurring regularly enough to warrant a blog posting about updates. I will post at least monthly to be able to report any changes made.

2. As of this writing, there are some issues if you are searching for materials. We apologize for the inconvenience this may be causing you and hope to have it resolved yet today. For any searches and holds of materials, feel free to use the Classic Catalog tab.

Happy winter to those who are watching the snowflakes fly!

Voiced your opinion yet?

2010-10-04T11:11:00.004-06:00

Have you got a few minutes to spare? Then we are interested in hearing from you - about your experiences and interactions with your library branch. Follow the How Are We Doing link in the Help Footer to the survey. We hope to hear from you as often as you would like to provide input!

Do you feel the power?

2010-09-27T16:07:00.005-06:00

Are there times you long to find articles without having to cull through which are good and which are just bunk? Need just an extra 10 minutes to do laundry instead of culling through your search results? Well, PowerSearch to the rescue!

This feature from Gale (one of our research database vendors) now searches all of its resources (those in which we subscribe to, anyway) at the same time and returns results in one list. So now you can just peruse your search results without having to decide if the article may be of dubious quality or whether it may be coming from second cousin Sue's neighbor who likes to write....... Besides the advantage of entering your search term only once, databases also provide quality resources.

Where can you find this awesome tool? In the dropdown next to the search box on the website! Choose All Gale Databases.

So ~ search away and do laundry, too.

Are you transformed? Transfixed?

2010-09-20T09:58:00.004-06:00

More than just providing books and movies on the shelves, more than just the buildings which house the materials and the myriad of staff who are there to help you ~ isn't the entire experience and interaction with your library about being transformed or transfixed?

In my childhood, I was Nancy Drew in the penny loafers and skirt set (no snickering for those of you who can guess my age!). From Nancy I moved onto the high literature of Harlequin romances. To this day, my love of reading propels me from the educational (e.g. Winning Scholarships) to the fascinating (e.g. Pope Joan). I have to admit that listening to Pope Joan was like being in a time machine where I was transported to Europe in 855 and had a front row seat to daily life.

You have been seeing our front page stories which are themed "Libraries transform lives." It can happen in big ways, like literacy, but it can happen in smaller ways, too. Have you been transformed? Transfixed? Share your story here!

Your voice, your words

2010-09-13T08:58:00.005-06:00

Yes, the new website carries reviews - your reviews! Follow these 5 easy steps to begin writing reviews on the website. Share your reviews with fellow readers/watchers/listeners!

1. Find any title you would like to review and click on the title.
2. Find the box which says REVIEWS and click on Sign in to write a review.
3. Under the Create an account button provide your email and username.
4. With the email we send you, click the link to establish your password.
5. Now, you should be logged in. Next to the cart it should say Hello + username. When you find a title to review, the link will read Write a review instead of Sign in to write a review.

Want to share your reading/watching/listening list with others? Once you've set up an account you will have a unique user number. The easiest way to find this number is to click on your username. This takes you to a page of everything you have reviewed. Share this unique url with friends and family!

Review often and spread the word!

Yellow Means......

2010-09-07T09:57:00.006-06:00

back to school, from the #2 pencils we buy to the school buses stopping in our neighborhoods to the school crossing zones which blink yellow lights at us....it all means that our kids are back in school soaking up education.

Are you looking for additional resources to help your child with reading? Look no further than our electronic subscription product, NoveList K-8. With just your library card you have access to a ton of resources! Besides finding book recommendations for your children, you can also find books by Lexile levels or Picture Book Extenders, which can be used as discussion tools for reading comprehension.

Find the More dropdown to locate Picture Book Extenders information. Info about Lexile levels can be found on the right hand side of the page under NoveList Resources.

Happy Back To School!

I don't have time!

2010-08-30T10:15:00.002-06:00

When we are shopping in the grocery store are we browsing? Looking for whether the split pea soup might be better than the vegetable beef? When you are online, are you browsing to see what the latest news flash is or are you headed to your favorite news website right away?

I begin to wonder at our ability or our attention span for browsing.......in light of the millions of other things on our to do lists (okay, so maybe I'm the only person who ever makes such lists). Have we lost our ability to just browse, to take a few minutes to enjoy the soup display or the book display and see what the staff have tried to put together to engage us for a few seconds and possibly a few dollars?

Even online, I feel like I don't browse any longer. I go to specific websites for specific reasons. When I need a recipe which has mushrooms and zuccini, I am not browsing and looking at the colorful photos of other recipes. When I want to find a book, I am simply typing it in the search box and off I go. Who has time to look for recommendations? Are we all just too busy? Are there websites or stores which entice you to browse? If so, how do they engage you further?

Interdependency

2010-08-23T08:34:00.000-06:00

For the majority of you, I hope Sunday morning's non-access to the catalog was something you did not even notice. Like putting new tires on your car, you are inconvenienced but find it was worth the time and effort. Well, we had to replace the server which runs our catalog Sunday morning. This meant that you did not have access to materials for searching and placing holds. It also meant that access to many of the databases was not accessible.

We thank you for your patience during the morning while we made the switch. Our new server is running smoothly and we appreciate the time it took from your morning.

The catalog is what is running behind the scenes. What happens when you conduct a search from the website? Tt goes to the catalog and returns results. What happens when you want to check the status of holds in your account? The system is going into the catalog/user function. So you can see the interdependence between the website and the catalog and how the "right foot" doesn't dance very well without the "left foot."

Do You DVD?

2010-08-09T09:49:00.000-06:00

Living in Colorado means not experiencing things like big rain puddles and the use of galoshes very often.....but last night it rained and rained and rained some more! My garden is so very happy.....does this mean an early winter, though?

We do not have much to report on the website side that is new from last week's post. We hope you are finding the titles you are seeking and that the cart is working for you. I have appreciated being able to search and place titles in my cart, search again and again and then check out all of my goodies with one login.

If you haven't taken the DVD survey yet, please take just 30 seconds to do so now. It's only 3 questions and your input is valuable as decisions are made about this popular collection format.

Welcome August!

2010-08-02T09:33:00.000-06:00

Have you begun to hear the sound of leaves rustling....at your feet instead of in the trees? Have you been craving the scent of sharpened pencils? Then you know it's that time of year called back to school.......

Feel free to check out our website presences for great school/homework resources:

Homework & Research in the teensite provides relevant databases & website links
Homework in Tales Treehouse lists databases for children and subject guides (to some of the more common topics like biographies and biomes)
Research & Business on the mainsite is one path to access the database products

Our work on the website continues on the back-end. We continue to work on importing records to have the most up-to-date information available on the website and try to have the covers available, too!

Let us know how your searches and interaction have been going with the new website! In the meantime, it's only 14 days left til school starts at my house!

More, more, more!

2010-07-26T07:39:00.000-06:00

As if the covers in the carousels/boxes aren't enough to entice you into more reading, more listening and more watching, we also have lots and lots of newsletters which provide great recommendations, too!

What, haven't heard? Well, here's how to find this treasure:

OnDemand > Online Newsletters

Newsletters are offered in lots of different topics, from childrens to adults. Interested in business titles? There's a newsletter. Want to keep up on childrens chapter books? You'll find a newsletter! Newsletters are issued at different times during the month so, depending on what you are subscribing to, you may receive more than one a month. Each title also links to our website so you can easily put them in your cart. The easiest way to keep current is to subscribe; you only need an email to get started!

Personally, I really like the Lifestyles newsletter. While I'll admit to not being the most devoted non-fiction reader, I really like the cookbooks!

Take a look and let me know what you think!

More New Stuff!

2010-07-19T11:37:00.000-06:00

Is it hot enough outside for you? Thinking of staying indoors just to prevent heat stroke? Then check out the website where we provide all manner of new titles for you to peruse!

As you know, we created more Coming Soon material based on popular demand. The top carousel box on the home page says Coming Soon and its box is filled with titles which will be..... arriving shortly. You can also click on "books," "movies," and "music" inside of the carousel. Where does this take you? To more coming soon in all of these formats!

For instance, the Coming Soon Books provides a list of titles either coming soon or newly arrived. Depending on when we feature it and its arrival date, it could be in your hands quickly! On the left hand side of this page, you will find more lists of interest such as award winners, bestselling, coming soon, recently ordered and new & notable. Under "movies" and "music" you can find coming soon, recently ordered and new & notable.

We're always working to provide you with great reading, listening and watching opportunities and we hope these lists give you further access to parts of the collection via the website.

Let us know how you like these lists or if you have questions about them! In the meantime, check out a good book/movie/cd and stay out of the heat!

Knock, knock

2010-07-12T09:31:00.000-06:00

No this isn't quite a game of "who's there?" - but a call to ask you about where you find reading, listening and watching recommendations from....... is your neighbor when you chat at the mailbox, is it the newspaper which provides reviews? We're dying to know! Why? Well, the new website provides for posting recommendations - from staff or from patrons. When you click on Staff Picks in the browse boxes from Books, Movies or Music you see a page of names and reading interests.

Is this page useful to you?
Do you find recommendations by staff name?
Prefer to find interests by reading or movie watching genres instead?

We have lots of questions around recommendations in order to present this page of picks to you better based on your needs.

If you have a few minutes, please take our Getting Recommendations survey. We're happy to hear from you!

Happy Fourth of July!

2010-07-05T10:05:00.000-06:00

I don't know about you but I've heard enough fireworks to last me awhile. Lots of noise going on in the neighborhood!

In the world of website work, we are working on import of records and import of covers. We hope you see more covers on items. Just because there is not a cover, you should be able to place the item on hold. Even if you don't see a complete description, you should be able to place the item on hold.

Oh - and because we just celebrated a holiday - you can find our holiday closure information in the footer. Look under the Library heading to find the dates during the year in which our facilities are closed.

As we slide towards July

2010-06-29T13:07:00.000-06:00

As of this week, all is fairly quiet in the website world. We continue to post new content while back-end changes are being made as we work through our list of these to-do's. Please feel free to provide your input either to this blog or to the Website Feedback link you find in the footer. We're happy to help!

My "in the meantime" post this week takes you to our neighbor blog, Sizzling Showdown. We have been running a weekly contest of titles in which you get to vote for your favorite. Check out the blog. We were running adult mysteries in May (and I'm not giving away the winner!). June features a different set of childrens titles a week. This is your last chance to vote for books about real kids before we move onto teen titles. If nothing else, you can find a great selection of titles you may not have heard about!

Happy reading!

News for the week

2010-06-21T13:50:00.000-06:00

You can now see the Classic Catalog tab on the website. Easy access for those who want to search this interface.

Look in the near future for more lists of new materials under the Coming Soon links. We're working on it!

In the meantime, I received a great question from a patron who was looking for ebooks (those which you download and read off of another device). You can find them on our site through a couple of different paths:
1. Books tab > Browse books box > Ebooks
2. OnDemand tab > Browse box > Online books

These paths will take you to our vendor website where you can peruse a number of ebook titles. But then he asked what kind of ereader he should buy. There are many options and more are being brought to market all the time! I suggested a couple of articles from PC Magazine and from Wired Magazine which discuss features. Happy reading - what is your preferred format and why?

Of Incremental Changes

2010-06-14T17:09:00.000-06:00

to be made and yet forthcoming is the following:

creating a more prominent link/button/navigation element to the classic catalog. There are search elements within the classic catalog and are not on the website that you may use. Please link to the classic catalog for these features. Among them are the ability to click on a subject heading to find like materials and the ease in choosing titles which are volumes (think travel books, SAT books or tax books). Questions? Ask here!

Besides making changes to the website, we continue to work on data to ensure the most up to date content is on the website.

Summer reading has kicked off in all of our branches and people are really excited about it! Numerous comments have already been posted to the teensite and adults have provided reviews to the mainsite, too! Thank you! If you did not know, Tales Treehouse is also asking for reviews from children. Enjoy the summer!

Enhanced Search Results - The Details

2010-06-07T13:34:00.000-06:00

This story provides more detail to the enhanced search results posted in the last two posts.

Cover Image: The large cover image we used originally was requested by some patrons, but in the context of search results, it took up too much room. The cover image was made smaller to accommodate more information about each search result in a smaller space.

Publication Date: The publication date is now available. For items with more than one date, the first date is shown.

Format: The format was previously available in two places – as an image and as text. The format information is now only an image placed to the right side of the other information. The format image contains a word or words to describe the format. For some newer items, or items with brief bib records, the format may not be available.

Add to Cart: The “Add to Cart” button now has the cart icon on it, is smaller, and is placed to the right of the other information, instead of below the image.

Check Availability: There is now a “Check Availability” button below the “Add to Cart” button. It pulls availability information and holds (if any) directly from the III server. This is the same information available to users of the classic catalog, but is more complete for titles with many items, and requires fewer clicks. This allows patrons to view availability without moving away from the search results.

Shortened description: The description needed to be shortened to shrink the overall size of the search results.

Close link: The “Close” link on the pop-up box won’t wipe out search results any more!

Note: because the search uses the classic catalog to produce results, the number of items per page remains the same, even though the space used by each search result is smaller. You will also see the new format when browsing the “facets” on the Books, Movies and Music pages. The facets are produced by a III product called Feedbuilder, so the information available for new items is somewhat different than the information provided by search results. The newest items may have very little information available, but can still be added to the cart. You will see these changes for the “Coming Soon” lists in the near future.

Enhanced Search Results Live!

2010-06-02T16:31:00.000-06:00

When you conduct a search, you will now see the new search results as mentioned earlier this week........

You will see this same presentation when you click on any of the searches in the Browse boxes in Books, Movies and Music!

Enhancing Search Results

2010-06-01T15:11:00.000-06:00

We're keeping tabs of the input and comments from y'all and will be shortly releasing our enhanced search results for you.

Among changes being made include decreased white space in search results, smaller covers, linking to item availability, adding the publication date and making the format type more obvious.

We hope these changes will be as appealing to you as they were to us as we worked on revisions! Stay tuned! A special post will be released when these changes are live!

Update for the week

2010-05-24T11:16:00.000-06:00

Greetings and Happy Monday to all!

This weekend I witnessed my poppy plant going a'bloom! From one bloom to ten, it was like a birthday present! I hope the wind does not blow them to smithereens before the rest of the pods can open up........

Work on the website for the week included:

presenting the staff names in an organized fashion for findability and reading/viewing/listening recommendations! In the Books, Movies and Music carousels you can now find Staff Picks listed. When you click on this link, you are presented with a list of names on the left. On the right you will find select staff with a mini-bio and their specialty areas. We hope you find this useful and will bookmark your favorite recommenders!
search results are being worked on to present more information, upon your request. We will add a link in search results to "check availability" and present the format in a clearly defined manner. We are shortening the descriptive information here. Look for these results soon!

Update Work

2010-05-17T09:55:00.000-06:00

The more things change, the more things stay the same. Who said that? And how in the world can that apply to the website work?

We have been steadily receiving responses in regards to the new website. Your comments are much appreciated and continue to help us as we work on improvements.

Changes in the works include:

modifying the search results presentation. Comments heard include that the search results take up a lot of room and being able to present availability would be nice. Look for changes to search results.
more coming soon lists and titles! We realize that you love our coming soon lists! We'll be working on presenting more and better.
staff picks. Besides finding staff picks in the bottom carousels, access to any staff person's picks was not the easiest thing to find. We are building a list of staff pick names so that you have easier access to locating your favorite staff's recommends!

And ~ because things change all the time ~ hats off to all high school graduates in Littleton schools! May your futures be blessed with opportunities!

New Changes!

2010-05-10T12:19:00.000-06:00

If you have not yet seen the changes to the website, then look now! After hearing that our Coming Soon lists were so popular, we have recreated them on the new website. The top carousels of the Books, Movies and Music pages are titled Coming Soon and feature just that. There are now links next to Coming Soon which take you to the lists of more Coming Soons and bestsellers, too!

Thanks for your great input and feedback to the website. It has been much appreciated.

We're Listening

2010-05-03T11:05:00.000-06:00

to your input ~ thx for the input received as we round the corner to week 2 of the new website. Many of you have commented that you miss our Coming Soon lists. We have responded that the Recently Ordered is another version of the list. The difference is that Recently Ordered provides everything that has been ~ well ~ recently ordered. The Coming Soon lists were hand picked titles and more select presentations.

With lots of backroom conversations, we have come up with a presentation of Coming Soon lists. As this blog is being written, work is being done to enhance the website with such lists. Look for it yet this week, barring extreme technical difficulties.

Some have commented in not finding the search box - it is placed in the upper right corner.

Thanks to those who have replied regarding what they want to see in Recently Ordered lists - how they might want them ordered or further sorted.

All of this leads to an appreciation for our public. In rolling with the changes, in providing input and ~ gratifyingly ~ letting us know they love our libraries and our services. Thank You!

Week 1 - Post Launch

2010-04-26T14:50:00.000-06:00

Like getting ready to throw a big bash - are the tablecloths ironed? Is there enough food? Are we sure we sent invitations to all the right people? Well, launch happened on Thursday and while we are sure we sent invitations out, maybe all the tablecloths weren't pressed........

Thank you ~ one and all ~ for your input and insights and feedback. They are much appreciated. From you we have learned that you loved our Coming Soon lists on the old website, that you very much use the Prospector link for obtaining materials and seek easy access to the downloadables.

For those of you following or finding the blog, answers to the findability of these three things is provided here:

Coming Soon lists have been replaced by Recently Ordered lists. Look for these in the Books, Movies and Music tabs in the Browse boxes
Prospector can be found when you are looking at your search results. In the left box labelled Search scroll down to find the Search other libraries using Prospector link. At this time, the search you performed does not carry over to Prospector.
Downloadables can be found under the Books tab > Browse box > Audiobooks or the OnDemand tab > Online Books.

Issues we quickly resolved include handling items placed in your cart for ease of checkout. Next on our list ~ this week ~ is improving the loading speed of the site.

Keep your comments coming!

Whoo Hoo - Launch Week!

2010-04-19T10:49:00.000-06:00

Our final list of to do's are being worked on this week in anticipation of our launch on Thursday. Thanks for your comments and for your patience during this process. We hope you will enjoy using the new website and the features it provides.

Even as we prepare to launch, we are asking ourselves questions about how you use the library ~ specifically recently ordered materials. We are going to some of the computer classes to ask patrons about recently ordered. If you would like to participate, the questions are provided below.

1. Do you use the "Featured Lists of recently ordered items" in our catalog?
If no, how do you find items to place on hold?

2. How would you like to be able to view recently ordered/new materials?

Newest first
Alphabetically by title
Alphabetically by author
Format
Genre
Subject
Reading level
Other

3. What information would you like to see about each item in a recently ordered list?

Title
Author/actor/artist
Ratings/reading level
Tags
Availability
Summary
Other?

4. How often would you like the new material lists to be updated?

5. Is there any other information you'd like to tell us about finding/viewing recently ordered or coming soon library materials?

Tick tock, tick tock

2010-04-12T08:41:00.001-06:00

As the countdown continues for us we hope you are enjoying the look, the feel, the different approach taken for the new website.

We have continued on with our to do list and can now cross off the databases. It takes some internal configuration to have them connect for you - both internally when you are in the libraries using the databases and externally when you are anywhere else connecting to us. What a great deal databases are for us all! Free access to tons of magazine and newspaper articles ~ practice SAT and GRE tests among others ~ free language learning ~ online books for your kiddies to become engaged with reading ~ Consumer Reports full text ~ and tons more! If you haven't had the opportunity to check out these rich resources, try 'em now!

The countdown continues

2010-04-05T12:12:00.000-06:00

Til launch date later this month. It's hard to believe we flipped the calendar and it is April already. The weather has been holding out and my daffodils have enjoyed blooming for a few days now without the snow to bother them......until tomorrow........

We have continued to work on making use of the tagging feature on the new website. While the current site does not let us search for tagged items, you can find them once you click on a title (if that item has been tagged) or within someone's Pick page. Clicking on the tag will take you to a list of further discovery.

For instance Diana Gabaldon books have been tagged outlander series and you can find the alex rider series. Other features we have been working on include adding links in staff reviews to more content - like booklists in our fabulous teen and Tales websites.

The preview continues through the next two weeks - keep those comments coming!

Enjoy the spring weather and the website updates!

2010-03-29T08:57:00.000-06:00

Updates made to the website:

we are working on pulling the number of holds so they appear when you click on "check availability"
the pagination works when you click on a facet (those boxes which contain topics in the Books, Movies & Music tabs) and we have included the page numbering at the top of the box for additional convenience
we will provide a place and space for the Featured Lists found on the current website to reside on the new website

Keep your comments coming ~ we're listening!

What we know......

2010-03-22T09:25:00.000-06:00

Wow - thx for the comments! Your input is much appreciated ~ keep them coming! Here are some of the things we know that is happening during this beta period:

the site will be slower loading than it should be. we have not optimized the website and will do so before launch date so that it loads more quickly
the site can perform actions more slowly now due to the regular import of catalog items that is happening. in fact you may get error messages on the screen as a result. please bear with us!

Lastly, your comments regarding the Recently Ordered have generated conversations internally - thank you!

Beta Launch Week!

2010-03-15T08:50:00.001-06:00

Look for the article on Wednesday's website which directs you to the url to preview the new website. After weeks of blogs and updates, we can finally unveil the website for your live interaction!

We hope you will take the new website for a test drive. Please know that it's still under development and we are still working on improvements. Your input is important to us; use this blog to post your comments and observations.

In the meantime and ahead of the Wednesday article, the new website can be found here. Enjoy!

Updates for the week - progress made

2010-03-08T11:40:00.000-07:00

Greetings this second Monday in March to all. This post arrives with the good news that one of our technical details has been resolved. In the testing and searching performed on the new site, we have noticed that some titles have not pulled in complete information. So ~ all you see is the author and title ~ but no description and no MARC record. When we check the catalog this information IS there........

Sleuthing has revealed the problem with non-Latin characters (e.g. the accents over letters) causing a hiccup. It seemed to stick out like a sore thumb with the Harry Potter books! Why? The illustrator is French! Once we rewrote code (yea, John!) then we could start the import process for these items to provide better data to end users.

Another piece of progress is the ability to more quickly see "extras" that have been in the catalog but not originally in the website design. Now clicking on "view extras" can provide professional reviews, series information and table of contents.

Our work continues ~ here's hoping this week brings only rain and not snow. My flower bed is starting to think spring!

Reviews are up and running!

2010-03-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

Updates have been made to the website account portion of the new website. Users can now write their reviews directly to the site. This is a great feature for our staff who regularly submit content on all types of materials. We hope to see lots of non-staff input, too.

Since we've announced this update to staff, the Picks carousel (where new reviews are immediately posted) has already turned over new content! The tiny screen shot posted here shows the Picks carousel.

Snow and Progress Made !

2010-02-22T08:59:00.000-07:00

I am of the persuasion that spring sports are meant to be played in spring - with warmer weather and none of this white stuff on the ground! With my griping out of the way, I am ready to report on website progress made:

1. Writing reviews - which has been disabled for fixing, is now operational again. There are some cosmetic changes still to be made, but the function is good!

2. We're working on adding content to the OnDemand tab.

3. Some minor fixes have been made in the Spanish page facets to get a couple of these working.

On a related note, I want to share a couple of things reported in a talk by Vanessa Fox, search-engine expert. She says "about a quarter of web searches are one word; another quarter two words; 3% are eight words or more.+" Is it any different when users come to the library website? I'm thinking yes, because many titles are more than two words, right? But if you consider author searches then maybe we're just entering two words.

One of the things we are discovering is that the more specific you can be in the search box, the better your chance of your result rising to the top. Here's a couple of examples:

*The Help by Kathryn Stockett. In the search box "The Help" is a title keyword search and "The" is a throw-away word not being searched so we are left with a myriad of hits based on "Help" in the title. But, try searching "The Help Stockett" and see where you find the title - on the first page of results!

*Here's another example. The movie "Up" is now out in DVD and available in libraries. Again, using a popular word alone in the search box returns way too many results. But ~ if you use "Up Asner" in the search box, you end up with the movie on the first page of results!

At least from a library point-of-view, a little more information will return more satisfying results. Try it and let me know what you find!

+Cited from Joseph Janes, "Info the Woods," American Libraries, January/February 2010, p 34.

Happy Tuesday - A New Tab Is Born!

2010-02-16T10:45:00.000-07:00

We continue to chug along with improvements to the website. At this time we have no date to provide you for a beta launch - but please stay tuned!

The latest update is the addition of a new tab. It's been awhile since we've posted an image of the home page - here's the top part showing you the tabs. As you remember, we've had the tabs for Books, Movies and Music as our standard navigation by format for browsing. With the addition of more ebooks into our repertoire it makes sense to add a tab called On Demand. Much like you've seen on other websites, On Demand for libraries means access to information electronically. You will be able to find audio books, ebooks, streaming titles and an entry to our research databases. Within research databases you will find e-reference titles, too. Under this tab we will link out out movie and tv show resources as well as music to provide users with a full-bodied experience since we don't have these resources available as part of the collection. Comments or input about this new tab? Would love to hear from you!

Refinements

2010-02-08T08:54:00.000-07:00

This past week we worked on and worked on hammering out the basic philosophy of the new website; things you've read here but put all together in one piece. The purpose of this piece is to better understand and then develop what staff need to know about the new website - for themselves and to talk to patrons.

We also consolidated the major work into buckets of work and have attached hours to them. So, onward and upward we progress!

To digress from website work, did you watch the Apple announcement of its new device, the iPad? Being a Mac family at home, we were engaged with about the first half of the presentation. My daughter was excitedly saying, "I want one, I want one!" The jury is still out, rather you can't get your hands on one yet but I'm on the edge of my seat waiting to see if this changes the reading community. If you can play games on the iPad with its larger (more senior-friendly?!?!?) screen, then is reading going to be easier and more enjoyable? Publishers are just beginning to create interactive books where you read the print but can follow along on a website for additional content. The iPad might provide a 3-D experience of reading where you see the location or can see the action as it happens. Will the concept of imagination be lost to us?

In the meantime, welcome snow! At least we're not on the East Coast digging it all out!

Website Work Continues/Book My Love Contest!

2010-02-01T10:55:00.000-07:00

Website preview parties have been in full swing introducing the new website to staff. Thanks to all staff who have been able to come and preview - interact - ask questions!

We continue our work and prioritization of it so that the major issues can be resolved sooner than later.

In the meantime, please check out our teen Facebook. We're running our Book My Love contest through February 15 to name your favorite teen title! To enter, you only need upload the cover on the wall. Check out other entries on the Fan Photos Wall. Got any bets for which title might win?

2010-01-25T11:53:00.000-07:00

It's a great Monday ~ no posting last week due to the libraries being closed.

On the website front, we are working a lot on the internals - technical work that still needs to be accomplished and taking the website to staff for them to discover and interact with the site. I am so very pleased to report that the feedback has been so positive! Staff are interested, are setting up accounts and are posting their reviews on library materials! Wow - it is so intriguing to see what is being posted to the site - I hope you will be as interested as I am when it opens to you - the public - as well! (ps the image is a book cover of From Slave Ship to Freedom Road that I just posted to the new site.)

Progress!

2010-01-11T09:01:00.000-07:00

Progress is hearing the sound of the school bus running again after the winter break....

Progress is not seeing the dust on top of the refrigerator, even if you had to get the step stool to reach in the first place.....

Progress is marking off "to-do" items from the website list and that is continuing on an ongoing basis. We made considerable progress in the mystery of "why won't some records import?" - and we think it has to do with accents and other such characters added to letters which somehow became a dam and prevented import. Now that we've got that working, many more records are now in our website. Whew - it did not help when the illustrator of the Harry Potter books became the "stop" because of her name!

On another front, we are updating information on sites such as Librarything Local and even our Google maps presence in order to be in the places where users might anticipate finding us. Should you see Arapahoe Library District in the virtual world with incorrect information, please post the link to this blog - your help is much appreciated!

Happy New Year of the Tiger!

2010-01-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

For those of you who follow the Chinese calendar, 2010 is the Year of the Tiger. In our extended family, we celebrate together with special foods (for luck and for health, of course!) and we find out which family members celebrate their "year."

The latest work on the website has been to prioritize our list of to do's. Part of this is based on the input received from our management team and part of it has been an internal list we've been keeping. In getting more organized we are moving away from our multi-tabbed spreadsheet to our internal ticketing system for better process and flow. We still have a number of known issues we are working on and ask for your patience as we continue to work through these. Continue to check the blog and/or the website for the announcement of our beta launch. The website will be previewed for staff during January.

In the meantime, health and happiness to you in the Year of the Tiger.

With a ho ho ho

2009-12-21T11:31:00.000-07:00

Work on the website last week consisted of compiling and contemplating the results received from our leadership team's homework assignment. They were given three tasks to complete and provide input and insight on their experience. Early results indicate that we need to work on the "my account" part of the site to make it work better so plans are now underway.

In the meantime, this blogger has been working on making our library information more visible on Google Maps and ensuring that our information is accurate on Yahoo Local. Should I even be surprised that our information can appear in so many places online? If you heard a vague thunk as you read this, it was my brain exploding as I created yet another username and password in which to manage all of this! Sidenote: read more about openid to see how this might help!

So with a hearty ho ho ho in the hopes that your cookies have been baked for Santa and your stockings have been hung with care, wishing you the merriest of holidays!

Do you need to go on a techno-diet?

2009-12-14T10:11:00.000-07:00

A study, How much information do we consume, comes out of the Global Information Industry of the University of California at San Diego. They say that Americans consume 34 gigabytes of information - daily! Excuse me, but that sounds like techno-overload! Granted this is for the year 2008, and it does include tv and radio as part of our information consumption. All in all it says that we consume information about 12 hours daily and 100,000 words per day (either through reading or listening). Think this sounds outrageous?

Offering a quick update on the website, we presented it to our management team here at ALD. They each have a task to perform on the new site and report in. These insights will be gathered and prioritized for to-do's prior to beta launch next month. Look for an update next Monday - I will try to summarize any major findings.

It its December, it must be time for presents!

2009-12-07T08:33:00.000-07:00

The website has received an early present - the gift of more movie and music covers! Thanks to sleuths Jill and John for cracking the case. Their investigative work resulted in our being able to harvest many more covers from our vendor due to understanding the import process and where those elusive identifying numbers are located! This is one instance where the new website and its presentation of materials will be more full-bodied than the original catalog will be!

The website will be presented to management this week and plans are being made to roll out to staff next month for their input.

We will continue to hone and polish away!

Out with November, In with December

2009-11-30T12:37:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that I am turning my calendar over for the last time in 2009. It's probably too early to be thinking about 2010 resolutions when Santa's visit is coming upon us soon.......

As for holiday wishes, we will soon be beta-launching the website. We've worked on a number of issues with formatting the website for all browsers. You would not think this is such a big deal unless you're working at it from the back-end! We have placed the format icon on the materials for ease of use and have uploaded most of the item covers for a nice display of the collection. From the website you can almost feel like you're right in the library stacks! We continue to load and tweak content - like dusting before company comes over.

Back to Monday Updating!

2009-11-23T11:23:00.000-07:00

Where was I last week? We were all hands on keyboards as work continues on the new website. Things that have been crossed off the list of to do's are the shopping cart. We continue to import images for our items and records that have been added to the catalog. Troubleshooting continues with every aspect of the site - from search to formatting to technical issues.

Please check back next Monday to see when we might be beta-launching the site! In the meantime, may you enjoy your Thanksgiving and all of the festivities involved.

Wednesday update

2009-11-11T17:28:00.001-07:00

here's to egg on my face - it seems to be the norm with me any more.......

the work continues on polishing the site to a sheen or to at least a nice glow. we continue to fix bugs and test and fix bugs and test and work on content and revise and input more data and test and generally do all of the "moving in" things that one does with a new website. i'm happy to report that we're feeling closer and closer. this week's breakthrough occurred with the cart working in a more than asked-for fashion - yea john with the magic fingers!

stay tuned to next monday's post (really, i can remember to post on mondays!) for word on our soft launch.

What ... another Tuesday post?

2009-11-03T08:38:00.000-07:00

It seems to be the habit of posting on Tuesday instead of my regular Monday and the apology sounds like a broken record.....with the same reason as last week's post.

Since the move inhouse, we've been putting up pictures and arranging the furniture ~ so to speak. We continue to input content, test and work on bugs and fixes. Stay tuned as we release the site to you ~ very soon! You will see a story on the website's homepage linking you to the new site. Thanks for your patience!

In the meantime, getting your Thanksgiving plans together? Have a favorite Thanksgiving recipe or website? Share here!

We've Moved In!

2009-10-27T09:51:00.000-06:00

After the weeks of being almost there, almost there ~ the database has arrived inhouse. It's sitting on our server getting quite the workout and lots of attention!

We now earnestly roll up our sleeves and begin testing the searches. We input content to see how to do this and how it presents on the site. Among the myriad of things we will need to do is to continue to enter content and check forms and ensure the functions are there before we offer a public peek to you all. Kudos to those of you who continue to read, follow and have immeasurable patience as we go thru this process.

Apologies for the delay in posting this. Monday started off with a bang in terms of things to do for the new website and this blogger never caught up to post til now.

of cider and panda costumes......

2009-10-19T09:41:00.000-06:00

tis the season for lots of fall-related recipes ~ hot apple cider, pumpkin in pies or in soups or even in breads and making costumes. yes i still love making costumes even if i have to stuff my kids into them!

besides the leaves swirling and rattling in the streets, we are into the next phase of website work. we've been working our way towards import and marrying the information together into one happy union. as with any and every union, there are pitfalls and ours is no exception. we began testing friday and will use these initial tests as a springboard to moving further down the evolutionary scale of launch.

stay tuned - in the meantime enjoy the weather. you've got to love colorado where you can have hot and cold all in the same week!

Have you found a "sweet spot"?

2009-10-12T08:00:00.000-06:00

From the article in Harvard Business Review called Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time* by Tony Schwartz, it discussed the need to maintain one's energy in order to perform optimally. We tend to get sucked up into long hours and long projects. Did you know that our bodies require a break every 90-120 minutes in order to recharge? Look up "ultradian rhythms" or read the article....... It is a good reminder of "things I need to do better" such as checking email less often (no, the world will not fall apart if I don't respond more quickly!) and making conscious decisions on where we want to spend our time and making changes accordingly.

One of the things that hit me in this article was the term "sweet spot" - and not in tennis, either..... it is "feeling effective, effortlessly absorbed, inspired, and fulfilled." The program cited in the article is measuring employee's sweet spots and if they had actually experienced this. I thought back on my work and could actually think of one experience where I hit a "sweet spot" - yea! and even more in my home life (double yea!). But ~ stretching this to the online world ~ wouldn't you think there are websites so good you do not have to put forth extra effort to find what you were looking for? (And it only took me the second paragraph to get to the point!) So here's the challenge - name your "sweet spot" websites ~

P.S. on website work - the birds continue to migrate and so does our data.....

*Following this link will require you to enter your Arapahoe Library District card number in order to access it from our database.

The Birds Do It....So Do We

2009-10-05T11:27:00.000-06:00

Migrate, that is, migrate regardless of the countless other verbs that may have popped into your head when you read the headline.

We are in the process of migrating the information, the code, the stuff from our developer's server to ours. While I haven't moved in twenty years this feels like a major household move. Packing and unpacking ~ making sure you've gotten to all of the details ~ For this we rely on our inhouse expert, John, to do the unpacking for us.

Meanwhile, we continue to work on some of the backend content and some of the graphics needed for the new site.

With that, welcome October!

Moving Closer

2009-09-28T09:35:00.000-06:00

As the month winds down and we can see the start of a new month as we gaze over the week view in Outlook, so also do we move towards finalizing the website. Code is being written to migrate the database inhouse! Stay tuned for next Monday's blog for more updates on website work.

I will change direction and point you towards Arapahoe Library District's presence via Gizapage. There have been a number of online social aggregation or business card sites that have crossed my screen. Intrigued, I created an account which holds most of our online presence. Right now it does not interact with myspace or youtube but I hope these are just temporary! Other sites that I've heard about are card.ly, dandyiD and hi.im. You might want to scope out chi.mp, as well. No real rhyme or reason for choosing Giza over the others. Take a look and let me know what you think. Would you use something like this? Does it help to have a jumping off point at one place?

Rainy Day Monday

2009-09-21T08:59:00.000-06:00

or I'm glad I picked the cucumbers and beans from my garden yesterday! The cooler weather is a prediction that winter is probably not that far off. As I was enjoying the sun and the warmth yesterday, I could not help but gaze at the large tree in our backyard and wonder if this coming weekend was the start of leaf-raking, apple cider, and pumpkin lattes......

This week's post brings you cheery news to break through the gloomy day. The shopping cart or transaction function is working - a big hip hip hooray to Todd and to John for making this happen. We will continue this week to test the transaction. We will also look at our database to see if all of the records have been loaded. Once we can get these pieces in place it will be marrying it all together on one server and then the real testing begins. We will be running lots of searches to ensure the experience is what you are accustomed to.

Meanwhile, I leave you with this question which has nothing to do with either technology or the website work - what is your favorite fall experience?

Am I littering?

2009-09-14T11:40:00.000-06:00

The thought occurs to me that i might be a virtual litterer....... The upstanding citizen that i try to be makes me shiver at the thought of leaving behind litter on the internet. To further explain, i have accounts in twitter, facebook, linkedin and goodreads. I have a presence in worldcat and on amazon and librarything, too. I post photos to flickr and confess to lurking on lots of blogs, posting occasionally. I monitor sites like socialmention.com and yelp.com to see if and when Arapahoe Library District is discussed (if there are other sites like this that you know of, let me know!)

with all of this activity i feel like i'm leaving pieces of myself all over cyberspace. if anyone followed a trail of online dna, what would they find out about me? does it matter to me? how much does it matter?

studies have shown that we (the royal "we") are caring less about privacy in favor of socializing online. "we" are happy to engage as much online as in person. now there are even websites where you can aggregate the bits and pieces of you into one place (e.g. card.ly or dandyid). how comfortable are you? since google can show you what my house looks like, i'm thinking there's not as much left privacy-wise in our lives.

to post an update on website work - we continue progress on loading records and on moving the data to our own server - whereby i will be busily engaged in input and testing - and will have no time for further littering the cyberworld. looking forward to your thoughts.....

More, more, more!

2009-09-08T09:25:00.000-06:00

More website work, more records loaded, more progress made. It's fitting that this is blogged after Labor Day - normally a day of rest but not for all of us. We continue to make progress on the search function which is almost a "wrap." The checkout process comes next and then we begin the tidying up process to ensure all is working and all content is loaded on the new site. We've even started to talk about a timeline and in the near future, we hope to offer you a live link for your initial peek at the new site!

In the meantime, here's a new twist on reading - the digi-novel. You read the book and engage with the website for value-added information. According to the article you don't have to go online, the book can stand alone as is. And the book? It's called Level 26 - a a crime novel by Anthony Zuiker. Read the book, read the website, write your experience here!

Technology in the hands of babes

2009-08-31T08:00:00.000-06:00

Well, almost babes ~ how about grade schoolers? My email is sometimes like Christmas - it delivers a gift that sends me off and running after new knowledge and new content! The gift/email that was delivered sent me to the topic of technology in education. A recent study called Pockets of Potential: Using Mobile Technologies to Promote Children's Learning is a fascinating study of the use ~ or largely nonuse ~ of mobile tools to promote education. Those age 12 and under represent one of the fastest growing segments of users of mobile devices (because they have smaller fingers - in my humble opinion!) Part of it comes from the lack of standards but some of it comes from educators, too. Does providing your third grader with a cell phone so the teacher can send him problems improve his ability to learn? Time will help sort this out, I hope, so that we can maximize our use of tools to further enhance learning.

I enjoyed the appendix which lists some of the forward-thinking endeavors being made in marrying education and technology. It also brings to mind how libraries follow along with this effort. Do we make our content available for mobile devices? Will we check out mobile devices like books? It's an exciting future for us all!

This week I have nothing new to report on website development progress. Even our developer deserves a vacation so work on the new site has gone on vacation, too. We continue to pull records out of our catalog into the new website for testing search sometime in the near future.

How can we not communicate in an electronic world?

2009-08-24T08:56:00.000-06:00

Good Monday morning to us all! As of this writing, most every parent I know has gone through the routine of sharpening pencils, buying new clothes and waiting with bated breath for the start of school. Did we also buy any new electronic gizmos? A new laptop? An iTouch? Upgrade the phone plan for texting? For internet? We've come a long way when getting ready for school had nothing to do with batteries or anything electronic!

It occurred to me, though, that we can still not be good communicators when we are so wired and plugged and online most all of the time. I observed a friend who was trying to catch up with another friend at a large community gathering. With so many people, it wasn't just "hey I'll see you in the parking lot!" but more of "where are you going to be and when so I can meet you." Now both parties did have cell phones so they could communicate but they did miss their meeting (although they happened to find each other later). In thinking about this, my conclusion is that regardless of the tools ~ you still communicate the way you communicate ~ whether it's good or bad. Even with the best devices, we may still not be better off getting our messages to the people we need to!

Is this a decent segueway into website work or did I read you through a rough patch here? Our communications intent with the new website is one of providing you easy and eye pleasing ways to access the collection. We think this is your number one reason for visiting us and using us. We hope our communications/website matches the intent.

I have no updates to provide at this time for the website; work continues with the developer.

Update for August.......

2009-08-17T08:00:00.000-06:00

Records are loading

Carousels are filling

Stories are populating

We continue to move closer to finishing parts and pieces for the website to become one whole cohesive working unit of ease and functionality in finding great reading and listening and watching recommendations.

In the meantime, this blogger discovered (by reading other blogs!) the power of Google. No, don't stop reading! You probably use Google anyway, right? Well, when you perform a search you now see a link called "show options" - clicking on this provides many new ways to slice and dice your results. How about the wonder wheel view? I think the timeline view might be a good reference tool - showing the popularity of your search term. Even the videos and reviews is a nice way to limit the search if this is what yr seeking anyway. What do you think?

Of all things internet....

2009-08-10T12:36:00.000-06:00

Well this blog falls into two parts. Part 1 is the "here's what's happening in the building of the website" work and part 2 isn't. Choose your paragraph.

A laundry list of website work in progress:

*carousels are about finished. I am ready this week to start playing with them!
*the research & business area is getting attention this week as we wind down the last pages, functions, content, etc. this is taking some time because of the additional effort of databases and electronic resources with library card authentication.
*uploading of records continues and is chugging along faster than before - yea John!

Now for Part 2 - this blogger is actually starting a facebook page! remember the photo in one of the earlier blogs of a toe in the water? that's what my facebook is feeling like - a bit tentative and hesitant. it did not help that i started when there was some kind of attack going on.......... it's been interesting to see the friends and fans pages. some are pretty active in posting news and pictures and such while others are pretty slim in information - maybe it's the "i don't exactly know what i want so i'll just create a ghost of me online." stay tuned to hear if i can get more than a toe in the water virtually!

Besides having my presence in the cyberworld, there's soooo much information in regards to everyone else posting information about me, about companies ~ ratings and comments and input and opinions abound everywhere! i was cleaning my desk (yes, a cleaning that took place more frequently than annually!) and came across some notes of websites to look up. socialmention.com and yelp.com are the two i was playing around with to search for company information. how can one ever begin to keep up with all of the chatter? it used to be that monitoring the newspapers was the universe of knowledge but finding and searching the internet is a full-time job. more and more of these sites keep coming up - how do you keep up?

More Website Work!

2009-08-03T11:40:00.000-06:00

For many of us with school-age children, the countdown to the start of school began with the turning of the calendar from July to August. As a parent, it is a countdown of glee and joy but I'm sure my kids don't think the same way.......

With the turn of the calendar comes more work on the website and changes being made (think glee, not glum):

*we're continuing to download catalog records with anticipation that we can test the search function
*some of the functionality of the basic Books, Movies and Music pages are in place now
*most all of the basic pages have been created
*working on the transaction from cart to finish

To that end, we're slowly working our way towards some of the nitty gritty (just like going school supply shopping .... right before the start of school):

*making sure the formatting of text and font color is consistent throughout the site
*getting to theme the site in IE - very important!

Questions, input, comments? Let me know! In the meantime, I will leave this blog with a link to The Green Apple Core website. They're a bookstore in San Francisco and are doing a series of videos on the Kindle v the book. Whether yr a Kindle fan or a book fan, you will enjoy the series!

Do you believe?

2009-07-27T08:36:00.000-06:00

How much faith you do you put in what you read online? Not something like The Wall Street Journal online, but more like reviews of products. Do you tend to believe these reviews? Disregard most all of it?

I found myself looking online for new dinnerware. After twenty years, I thought it was time to purchase a new pattern in which to entertain myself during dinner! Went to some of the usual websites where dinnerware was sold to find patterns and prices and ended up at one site where customer reviews were provided. Found myself avidly reading their comments and making decisions in my head - "oh I should avoid this brand" but "this one looks pretty reliable based on all of the comments made." Now I did not know any of these commenters personally but it was a website I trusted.

Have been reading Neuro Web Design by Susan M. Weinschenk....her book talks about the psychology of clicking. Who would have thought........but her insights into why we do what we do on websites is quite interesting. She posits that if you know the commenter you have the most buy-in, if the website tells you a little about the commenter (e.g. soccer mom who loves to bake) then there is credibility but if there is no information other than a name, you are the the least influenced based on a rating only.

This post speaks to one of the features of our new website - reviews! It will allow you to post your opinion on any of our materials, much like the teensite does now. Will this influence what you place on hold? Are there websites with reviews which you use? Don't use? Why or why not?

I've got a hunch

2009-07-20T08:30:00.000-06:00

To say that I've gotta hunch you're going to love our new website sounds........brazen! But when you look at other websites which are trying to sell products, ours looks pretty tame in comparison. We will be more forward in showing you our materials through presentation of covers and presenting more staff picks. How brazen or forward is this? Too much? Not enough? For a library website, I think we're going out on a limb - but you will have to let us know what you think.

Based on thinking about what we want when we, ourselves, don't really know try the new website called hunch. It takes you through some standard questions (of which you don't have to answer all or any of them) and uses your answers to build its database. You can query hunch when you are looking for an answer. Try "which character from Twilight am I?" if you're a Twilight fan or "which author should I read?" if you want something more general. Do you like these results?

The wheels are a'turning!

2009-07-13T08:28:00.000-06:00

With lots of updates to report to you this Monday morning:

*search is ....well searching!
*we have a copy of the site on our server and are busily loading catalog records
*trying to pull over reading level with items
*getting the commenting function/feature in place
*the cart to place items you've found is now functioning

With these things in place, we'll soon be conducting inhouse testing to see how the site is functioning. Stay tuned; it is going to be sooner than later!

Gadgets

2009-07-05T18:00:00.000-06:00

are you a gadget person? besides the interactive activities offered on websites, there are a host of gadgets in which to extend your online presence and virtual world of friends. i quizzed my kids to see what kinds of toys their high school friends had. a very few had iphones and a few more had the ipod touch in addition to their cell phone. why? to access the internet! they were comfortable using the two devices (and keeping track of them, i hope!).

i was reading an article about the use of gadgets as it relates to age. groan - does the age of your brain really make a difference in your interaction with your device? it seems so. while the study does not directly relate to website work, it does give pause for thought about how different aged people interact with a website, too!

use this blog to provide input about the device you just can't live without....the device you really want from Santa this winter or ~ on the flip side ~ the gadget you think should never have been invented!

Website Wows

2009-06-29T09:00:00.000-06:00

I received notice of the Webby Awards and cruised through some of the nominated websites (there are lots!). Not heard of the Webby Awards? Nominated by anyone for excellence on the Internet. There are a number of different categories and honor is given to The Webby Award and the People's Voice Award in all of the subject categories.

You might want to take a look if you have some time - just to see some of the cutting edge work being done in the website world. Some of my favorites were:

Just Add New Zealanders for the drop-dead photography in their Locations area
Adidas for such an innovative home page even if I don't wear their shoes
WHITEvoid - just for being such a daring site in how it presents itself. While I still have no clear idea of what it does, the presentation is stunning
Wordle - just for playing and creativitiy!

If you browse through the site and find some nifty website and website features, tell here!

Meanwhile, we are still diligently working on the search function and learning a lot in the process. I could make this blog twice as long with the details of it all but will leave that to another blog, another day. If you have any specific questions about progress, about the new site feel free to ask in the Comments area. I will get back to you!

Search and Discovery

2009-06-22T10:20:00.001-06:00

We're working on the search function right now, can you tell from the title? It seemed to me this was a good time to dust off the 40 pages i've been carrying around in my bag and actually read Online Catalogs: What users and librarians want because it relates to search. Aside from reading at the patio table and surviving a wind gust {that's another blog post!} here are some interesting findings of what users want:

1. direct links to online content
2. evaluative content like summaries or tables of contents
3. relevant search results
4. availability information
5. simple keyword search with advanced option

Knowing these things is good to keep in mind as we continue to develop the search process. Have you found or do you use sites which have really good search?

Reading this summer?

2009-06-15T13:34:00.000-06:00

As we continue to work on the search function, it occurs to me that we do this in the name of entertainment.....to read and to listen for pleasure or to watch movies and documentaries to learn and be engrossed in something. The website is just the means to get you there. Where do you get your reading and movie list from? The newspaper, friends and family, Oprah? Hopefully you are engaged with the great staff who can provide reading recommendations up one arm and down the other. Me, I need my goodreads account to help me remember ...but thank heavens for that!

If you have places where you find good reading and watching, this blogger wants to know! Post here to start a list. In the meantime, let me make a plug for ALD's Summer Showdown. The best books have been picked in picture books, childrens, teen and adult fiction. Take a look at the lists, comment and vote! Have you read any/all of these? We'll vote one off every week; by the end of summer the most favorite takes all!

What kind of online participant are you?

2009-06-08T14:59:00.000-06:00

As we continue to work on website development, the question comes up about participation from patrons - you! There is a theory called Participation Inequality or 90-9-1. It posits that 90% of us are lurkers on websites, blogs, etc. - we prefer to read and watch rather than participate or contribute. 9% of us will put our toe in the water and contribute to a thread or edit a comment and a whopping 1% of us are active contributors/creators.

With these numbers, I wonder where you stand? How much do you lurk? Where? Where do you contribute and why? Are there online communities that seem to draw you in more than others? Do you find yourself returning to certain sites but not others?

It seems to be like the retail experience. Am I drawn in by the colorful window display? Find the staff friendly and knowledgeable? Even if I did not purchase anything, I may return another time because it was a positive experience. Can I make the same analogy to a website? Some do have nice window displays but their interior pages are not very useful. Others are terrific sites which provide lots of information so I choose to bookmark them.

In my world, I return again and again to goodreads. I find I like keeping track of my reading and it helps me to remember when I want to recommend something. On the other hand, I haven't much used my personal worldcat.org account. While I have experimented with creating lists and tagging items, it has not drawn me in.

With that, I leave this blog returning you to the second paragraph - let me know where you like to hang out in the cyberworld. We'll create our own mini-study!

Of website work and website debuts

2009-06-01T11:17:00.000-06:00

In the web world we are hard at work on the search function and making sure the search function is working as you know it and love it - working well! Not more to report because the details would be painful and boring.........author searches, marc records, etc etc. We are also beginning to tie up some lose ends in other areas in anticipation of being able to input content sometime this month!

Hats off to our neighbor Rangeview Library District for the launch of their new website ~ some terrific stuff!

And because i enjoy posting a visual with the blog, this pic is in celebration of spring and the peonies blooming in my back yard!

It's Getting Closer!

2009-05-26T10:11:00.000-06:00

We're in the middle of testing the search function! Yea! Clap, clap, cheer, cheer (can i embed a audio file here?) Once search is complete we're about 3/4 done with the developer work and ........only 1/4 done with content work. Maybe i should rescind the clapping part until further notice.........

Our website is only as good as the technology that it runs on........ Our apologies for the downtime you may have experienced this 3 day weekend with our websites. Due to difficulties beyond our control, our sites were down. As of this writing we're back up (more cheering, please, for John and Austin) while continuing to ensure we stay up and running. On a more personal level, i have found my cell phone becoming a ...... timepiece ...... It quit ringing so while i can access voice messages it does not quite work in the manner intended. We do have every intention of the new website working as intended - access to materials, suggestions for you as well as the ability to easily find locations or policies.

Are you a book bagger?

2009-05-18T14:29:00.001-06:00

Heigh ho, heigh ho - it's off to work we go. Our website work for the last week looked at the cart function, maybe more popularly known as the book bag. Do you use this feature? It allows you to place titles in a holding area and check them out at once instead of title by title. I'd be interested to know for you voracious readers out there. Me? I don't take advantage of the book bag because I can't read as quickly as the titles come in!

Other website work includes the breadcrumb function and starting some basic content inputting work.

On another front, more physical, is the building on the new Southglenn facility. My daughter and I toured last Friday and had the opportunity to envision the great space it will be for library users. If you are interested in a sneak peak, follow this tours link or browse our flickr pics.

Following Ants

2009-05-11T09:11:00.000-06:00

We share the space we live in with ants.....as much as we try to decimate them they are always around come spring ....scrounging for the seemingly invisible pieces of popcorn left on the rug after movie night. When you look more closely they gather their crumb of food and off they scurry with it back to their nest (den? hill?) only to return again for another particle.

This is what website work is feeling like....gathering an iota of content and gathering it in a safe place and then scurrying back out to find another bit of information to add to our pile. If I was a pessimist I would say our stash looks pretty dismal but you probably know by now that I tend to think on the sunny side of things.....so my view is that we're being thorough and complete in our gathering of information so that the content can be loaded quickly when the backend is ready. Right now, we're gathering the information in the footer - the About Us kind of particles which need to carry over from the current site to the new one. We are also working on the Research & Business area - considering the slivers which make for solid content.

In the meantime, I offer you a link to healthfinder.gov - a new health website brought to us by the government. Packed full of quality health information, it's a great starting point!

When was the last time YOU felt like a superhero?

2009-05-04T09:04:00.000-06:00

I just finished reading Amazing Powers - a junior nonfiction book which describes the Super Heroes and their unique super powers. I did not grow up with these characters so this book was a good introduction....... but then my mind started to race - why couldn't your experience on websites make you feel like a superhero? What if you could burn a virus with powers like The Human Torch? Be able to use flexibility skills like Mr. Fantastic to grab new apps to apply to a website that is frustrating? Or use the sticky powers of Spiderman to keep bookmarks, links, photos, etc easily in one place?

I would hope our new website is going to make you feel like a Super Hero - that there will be features which are appealing and functions which will be intuitive. We are working on the search function and finishing up functions on certain pages such as the individual item page. We are starting the process of downloading catalog records for testing against the search function and will begin work on collecting the content for input later this month!

In the meantime, have you found websites that make You feel like a Super Hero? Why? Share here!

You've gotta love spring!

2009-04-27T09:11:00.000-06:00

Here it is the end of April and we're seeing snow on the ground! Some groundhog really had it in for us back in February..........

On the website front, we continue to work on some training with staff as well as work with some of the content to see how to input and how it presents. It is starting to come together nicely.

Just wanted to point out that we're making changes to database descriptions. On the teensite, Melissa has rewritten them to be more teen-friendly. Take a look and let us know what you think. On the mainsite, most of the editing has been done ~ trying to be more succinct yet convey the information needed. Your input is much appreciated!

Making Progress!

2009-04-20T09:07:00.000-06:00

While the earth soaked up the moisture from last week's storm and the drivers slogged home slowly, if you looked far enough over the horizon you could tell spring was sitting there waiting to make its debut....and sure enough the snow turned to rain and the rain melted lots of the snow. There was actually green grass in the back yard yesterday!

This is what website work is feeling like these days. Not the storm part but the looking over the horizon part to see a glimmer of a website at the end of the keyboarding blood, sweat and tears.

Here's a laundry list of things we continue to work on and develop:

*creating content around the Research and Business pages
*finalizing the functions in the Programs & Classes pages
*describing how the transaction works when you click on "reserve now" - who would have thought such a simple click would involve hours of conversation?

At this point we will actually start training staff on some of the preliminary back end work - this is concrete and a sure sign of growth and progress!

In the meantime, let me make a shameless plug for the ALD Twitter - come visit - come follow!

the new keeping up with the joneses

2009-04-13T08:57:00.000-06:00

my new theory is that keeping up with the joneses now involves technology and whom is besting whom with the latest gizmos out there to keep up with our lives! added to that are all of these social tools and interactive websites which draw us into their world of adding content, posting videos and messing with the latest apps which might be applicable to our world.

does this sound like a rant? that has a negative connotation and i don't mean for this blog post to come off that way. i, too, have been embracing the technology world. for instance, i spent a better part of yesterday curled up with my ....laptop. ten years ago i would have been spending the day on the couch with a book! not to say that reading is going by the wayside but with so much technology and smaller and more mobile tools out there, who's to say i can't curl up on the couch with my laptop reading the latest Grisham?

i recently put a book in my "to read" pile - virtually on goodreads.com. this has become a so much more convenient way to remember titles than using paper or sticky notes. one title came to me via a friend who found the title via a twitter feed. how's that for being really plugged in! it brings to mind a couple of things a) i need to become more twitter educated and 2) the realization that most of my day is spent in 140 character soundbites or attention span. i recently cleaned my desk and placed a bunch of professional reading in a pile. once you put all of this material together do you realize how far behind you are! on the other hand, it brings to mind that some reading takes time to absorb.

moving on from this train of thought let's see how easily it segues into website development...bumpy, eh? we continue our work with different aspects of the coding/backend work. i'm happy to report that the carousels are almost complete and we continue to educate ourselves about building canned searches from the books, movies and music pages. once we have some more pages built we will be able to load some of the text-heavy content so that we can really begin to see how the website comes together.

so, are there tools or websites that you just can't live without today, regardless of keeping up with.....everybody?

Can we celebrate spring yet?

2009-04-07T19:45:00.000-06:00

The flowers in my yard are just so confused! It's so sunny and warm they decide to bloom so I am welcomed home with yellow daffodils and tulips beckoning me to pay attention to them. They've since succumbed to the re-awakening of winter and now are not so happy in the yard..... But, with spring comes more progress on website work.

We continue to make progress on the job function - always important! I spent yesterday working on creating searches to go with some of the links on the new website. Found this very fascinating and rewarding work ~ so much so that I forgot it was Monday and "blog day."

In the meantime, have you seen this New York Times gizmo? Quite an interesting new take on the tag cloud concept - it would be fun to put up something like this for a hot new title. Are you finding things like this? New stuff? Interactive? Pray tell.....here! (thx to Douglas for pointing this out!)

It's a Facebook Kind of World

2009-03-30T11:40:00.000-06:00

A recent study shows that Facebook is growing enormously and more so than myspace. Some of the reasons include the fact that Facebook has a nice design, is easy to use, has some nifty applications and the information is controlled by the user. One piece of information which surprised me was the growth of new Facebookers in the 35-49 age range! I had always assumed it was a college-aged social medium but now it seems that many more working adults are finding Facebook to be a useful tool. If you are a regular Facebook user, why? Are there special features that keep you?

I am hopeful that some of the reasons that keep Facebook growing from a website point of view are things we will be incorporating as we continue to build our new website. We will have a design which is centered around the collection (isn't that the main reason you visit us virtually?), we will introduce some interactive applications and we hope that it will be easy to use.

Work continues on back end work with our jobs area getting some attention as well as finishing up the functionality in our Locations & Hours pages.

Map of Knowledge

2009-03-23T11:21:00.000-06:00

Greetings on this Monday after the start of spring! I could tell it was spring before the calendar even notified me because my tulips and my hyacinth began blooming. They reside in a south facing flower bed so benefit from more sun than less, thus blooming earlier than everything else. Woe is me when they inevitably get covered in snow!

Website update: we continue to work on the backend. We look at the carousels and decide how to manage the items, adding and deleting. We are almost finished with the Locations & Hours pages getting them in shape with all of the features needed. Getting started with the Jobs function and getting that in shape. Continue to move forward on the My Account feature - what all does this comprise when you click on it?

Today's post besides spring and website work provides a look into something nifty called the Map of Knowledge. The Los Alamos National Lab scientists mapped how researchers moved from one journal to another in their electronic data searches, creating associations between them. Adding color coding by topic, it shows the probability that the reader will click to another journal.

I got to thinking about whether this kind of map would apply on our website. Would there be some probability that I would go from historical fiction to fiction to mystery fiction? Is there any benefit to anyone else knowing this thought pattern? I'm not sure there is..... When I look at my goodreads account it is starting to contain a wide range of titles, including picture books that I like. Who ~ necessarily ~ wants to follow my reading patterns from fiction to picture books? Maybe it would be really cool to follow some really good readers advisors as they move from author to author or topic to topic. Any thoughts ?

Are You a Digital Mom?

2009-03-16T12:06:00.000-06:00

I love catching up with my Google reader account. Granted, it usually takes a huge effort to carve out time to get there and spend time catching up but the guilt of having hundreds of posts there unread is enough motivation! It's kinda like take a professional development day except you're still in the office and haven't traveled anywhere and..... but I get the same feeling of being energized by new information and ideas. One thing that stuck was the Digital Mom study - how are they using the internet? I found it fascinating, maybe because I am one and could see where I fit.

The study identified 5 types of moms: the self expressor, the utility mom, the groupster, the infoseeker and the hyperconnector. We're all using the internet to some degree depending on the age of our children. Younger moms have a higher interest in parenting and shopping while older moms look to the internet to monitor our teens' activities.

I see our Parenting Blog appeaing to the self expressor moms (early 30 aged moms with young children) but our new website appealing more to the groupster moms (those in their early 30's who are active online). Take a look at the study and provide your comments here!

Steppin' in time with daylight savings

2009-03-09T13:07:00.000-06:00

Website updates:

It's mostly back-end work that is going on so this front-end blog has been filling up with ancillary information that has been catching my eye. We've been working on creating forms, yes we do have lots of forms on the website! Also busily working on search results and how these present. Lastly, with some of the canned searches - experimenting with how to make them actually work! Questions regarding website updates? Ask here!

On on the non-website front, but related to the internet in general (am I taking liberties here?) I wanted to do a "brain dump" about my experience with goodreads. Finally pushed myself (actually I bribed myself into setting up an account, "do the setup, get chocolate") and set up a personal account. Later started adding books and friends. It actually was gratifying to be befriended (I know that sounds so middle school!) and it was nifty to add books to my account. Liked that I could create "shelves" to categorize titles the way I want to remember them.

Does this mean more to me than the previous online book holder storage site I used? If so, why? Here's my thought: I know all of the people on my friends' list - so their recommendations and comments mean a lot to me. So, does it mean less when I personally don't know the person? Hmmmm, I just blogged about how sticky Hennepin's site was and that I checked out a bunch of titles based on their recommendations. In this case, their annotations were the hook, regardless of the who. More to come in the following weeks as I become more adept at goodreads' features. It was interesting to note a news article talking about Facebook and how the online only doesn't work but only helps to facilitate the face-to-face interactions...... Meanwhile, check out ALD's goodreads account. Are you a goodreads fan?

Sticky Factor

2009-03-02T16:02:00.000-07:00

Today's post comes at the end of the start of the work week - one in which the weather here is mild and teases us that spring is not too far away while our friends and family who may live on the East Coast are probably muttering some not so nice words to Mother Nature!

I was perusing Hennepin's website today for a couple of reasons - website related reasons that I won't bore you with....but lo and behold .....I got sidetracked from my research into looking at the lists, reading the recommendations and before you could say "boo" I had placed at least six books on hold! What happened? I wasn't looking for books to read (see sentence 1 of this paragraph) but the covers and the descriptions were so engaging I could not help myself. Thinking about this provides the title of today's blog - Hennepin's site was sticky - I was an engaged browser who placed titles on hold based on recommendations.

Are there other websites which have a high sticky factor? Sites where you stay on pages to read them, engage with them, print or send onto others? What makes these sites sticky? One of my favorite recipe sites fits this description because it not only provide recipes but also star ratings and comments from intrepid bakers and cooks who have modified or substituted. I use this site regularly and trust the recipes' ratings. On the other hand, another recipe website I was cruising through last night provided the opposite experience. Trying to print the recipe was frustrating, saving the recipe and pulling it up later did not work. It asked me to set up an account without really explaining the benefit of doing so. Let me know what websites you consider sticky and why!

Don't Worry, Be Happy

2009-02-23T12:40:00.000-07:00

A recent article came my way and got me thinking - called The Library Web Site of the Future, the author (Steven J. Bell) talks about how academic library websites can be more relevant to its audience. Bell observes "a significant disconnect when it comes to faculty use of the library's website as a gateway, or portal, to access that wealth of electronic content."

Can I dismiss this as "oh, poor academic libraries having a hard time"? Or it doesn't pertain to me because I'm a public library? Well, I took it to heart and thought about the same thing. What does one visit a library website for? If you look at the search terms entered on the ALD site, many of you are seeking the latest authors and titles in books and in movies ~ and for all ages, too! Based on this evidence, we are carefully reviewing the content on the current website that doesn't relate much to our materials.

On the other hand, we ~ too ~ provide electronic content! Databases, downloadable titles, online electronic titles that even read the book (yes, you are missing something if you haven't yet experienced a Tumblebook!). Are you finding this content elsewhere? Is it more convenient to access besides visiting our website? This blogger feels like adults are finding electronic content in other ways, means and places but that we should continue to provide this information to the students we serve. They are being taught what databases are and how to use them in their schools and are advised on finding materials which come from credentialed sources.

So, my takeaway? Don't worry, be happy - a new website is coming soon!

Miscellany

2009-02-18T08:30:00.000-07:00

I'm late, I'm late! A holiday on Monday can just throw off your whole schedule ~ including blogging weekly. Sorry for the delay. An update to website work:

finalizing search results pages

inputting forms ~ this is great stuff for us on the back end, believe me!

more training on inputting content on the back end

continued "construction" of the back end database to meet our needs

Besides website work, I thought I'd follow up with sweetsearch.com and its search engine. I used it the other day when staffing the AskColorado virtual reference "desk." Not finding what I wanted out of my Google results, I thought of sweetsearch and switched. I was impressed with their results and liked the hits returned. Some were the same as what Google found; others were more on target and directed. Now I wish I could remember a specific example to share but one does not come to mind. Suffice it to say that I will be returning to sweetsearch when I need more directed answers to questions. Google will continue to be good for a more general search. They say it takes doing something seven times before it becomes a habit ~ let's see if I can remember to use another search engine the next time I need extra help! What are your favorite search engines? Why?

A Sense of Accomplishment

2009-02-09T15:12:00.001-07:00

Today was spent at our soon to be opened May Library! I shelved some fiction titles, some children's movies and music and ended up alphabetizing the Jazz and Latin music collections. Whew! Do my muscles feel it - the bending and lifting, the fingers moving to and fro, the brain constantly trying to remember the alphabet! I left with some muscle relief medication and also a huge sense of accomplishment - the term about some village to create something big certainly applies here.

Conversely, the website does not provide this same sense of physicial-ness but the hope is the same in that you will want to browse the collection and check items out that are of interest to you.

The countdown to the opening of the May Library is 13 days ~ the website more like 2nd quarter. Stay tuned and thx for your continued patience!