Update for the week

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

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!

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

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

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!

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

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!