Of Snow and Website Work

I'm trying very hard not to make this post a gloomy one, just because i spent half the day in the car due to the unexpected amt of snow we received. To try to remain upbeat, i will offer that my yard is much happier with the precipitation than i am .......

Being in the car for a long period of time can either drive you bonkers or drive you to come up with creative blog entries..... You can tell me if i've lost it, either way. My analogy of the day is that our website work is like driving to work when the snowplows haven't been out. It's slow going and it can be painful at times! The good news is that you eventually reach your destination. In our case, we are slowly progressing through website pages, going thru the minutia of what presents on the page and how this click works. Our latest foray has been on the search results page - a rather important page in the whole scheme of things. We are redefining the presentation of the search result page so that you see the most relevant on top of the page. The rest of the search result will present list style with an option to show cover style (did i hear you say "wow!"?). One of the new features we are working on is the presentation of limiters - such as books only or 2008 only. Like the snowplows, this work is invisible but know that we are working hard!

Now that I'm not behind the wheel and have had my mandatory coffee, I'm feeling much better ~ let it snow!

Website Update

Work continues on the website - even though you haven't seen newly designed pages in awhile. There are more in progress but are still in the rough stages! At this point, we are finalizing most of the design work while coding continues to build the back end and make it come to fruition.

Now that 2009 is upon us, we are busily conceiving how pages will function such as the Business & Research area. This is the primary area in which you will access the research databases. We also hope to provide more in-depth research tools here to assist you. We are also strapping on the thinking caps to figure out how to bring subject headings to the fore and make the more friendly than to just librarians!

Besides building the website, you will also have the opportunity to see two new facilities open this year. What a busy year for ALD! Thx for your continued support in the form of usage and comments regarding our progress. It is much appreciated.

New Year's Resolutions

Can you believe it's that time of year? When the fudge needs to get thrown away, when my better intentions need to be dusted off and revisited - where did 2008 go? While I am busily putting together my personal New Year's Resolutions, I thought I'd take a moment and blog about the website's resolutions, as well. Take a look (they're in no particular order, by the way except the first one!) and let me know what you think of them!

Resolution #1: to put up the new website in 2009

Resolution #2: to create a site which is interactive and allows for your commenting to any piece of material or item we own

Resolution #3: to showcase our collection electronically

Resolution #4: to provide an easy means for you to access our electronic resources

Happy New Year 2009 - Year of the Ox!

It's a visual world

think of the changes that have occurred since our parents' days. we've gone from black and white tv to full press high def color. it's come down to making reservations for the high def tv in our household for special tv shows or football games because the non high def tv just doesn't cut it! music was provided via a radio ~ look how far we've come! music is now a music video or it's something on youtube but the presentation of it is much more visual. even our shopping can be conducted visually. choose to upload a photo of yourself and you can virtually try on clothes or new hairdo's.

websites are drumming to the same beat as you have well seen in this blog from the pages presented to you. we're trying to take the physical collection that sits on the shelves and put them online for you to interact with as much as possible. this blog has already ruminated on the online experience - what kind of online shopper are you - the browser who likes to look around or the shopper with the exact list?

what examples have you run across that confirms this notion of visual presentation? in the meantime, may your dreams be merry (visually, of course!) and don't forget to leave out the milk and cookies wed nite!

Patience and presents

Just how much patience should we have? Is there a national patience quota that I can gauge my patience level against some national norm to see if I'm an outlier? When my fingers start drumming the steering wheel, when they edge close to the horn ~ then I know that my patience quota is running dangerously low. When the kid says "you've got to help me find this book so i can turn in my report tomorrow" then the fingers are a'twitch with impatience...... When I go to get said book and find that i'm number 5 or number 55 on the hold list, what does that do to my patience or lack thereof?

We are part of waiting lines all the time. Does it matter to you that you wait a week or a month for something you've put on hold? Is it better to just have your name on the list rather than not at all? How often are you managing your holds and deleting titles because you've found it elsewhere, have purchased it or simply don't care any longer? Especially during this month, when the anticipation of presents is all around, how much patience can we all expect to have?

Do You Hover?

Do you remember the parenting articles that came out awhile back about "helicopter parents?" These are the parents who hover and stay extremely close to their children, to monitor and try to prevent harm and even sheltering them from failure.

Well, if you can follow the leap from helicopter parents to hovering as a verb ~ then the rest of this blog will make sense, I promise! We've been checking out borders.com and barnesandnoble.com websites to see how they present their collection. Granted, you've heard this before if you're a regular blog reader. One of the nice things they do is offer a hover box. Scroll over a cover and you are presented with additional information. We thought this was a nifty feature and are working on building it on our site........ So here's the million dollar question of the day, do you like it? Does it offer anything value-added to your experience? Rather not be bothered by it? Share your experiences here!

Motivation........

Motivation can either be a positive word (I'm motivated to finish my holiday shopping by December 5th) or a negative word (I'm not going to eat any fudge this month so I don't have to lose 10 pounds next year.) My latest idea involves motivation when you visit a website. Much like when I visit a mall, I have specific stores I want to visit for specific gifts or items. After that or in between that are many more stores which have appealing displays. I stop to look at the window display and then am sometimes drawn inside (okay always drawn inside!) for further browsing and possibly purchasing.

Does this same behavior apply online? Do you go to specific shopping sites to find a specific something? Get sidetracked by seeing something else? I confess to not being an avid online shopper but my latest example is an Amazon purchase. When I located my item, I did look to see what others had purchased.

In the same vein as shopping, when you visit the library website, are you using the search box exclusively to find your materials? Are you sidetracked by the book covers on the home page? Are you putting any of these things on hold? Is reading/listenening/watching motivation different than shopping motivation?