Library Revolution

But who cares if nobody goes there?

Since the Web usability seminar last week, I’ve found myself engaged in a lot of conversations about how public libraries can make their Web sites more usable. Lots of great ideas have been flying around, and I’m really excited to see what kinds of changes will be coming down the road for the sites of public libraries in my area.

But there was one thing that wasn’t discussed at the seminar, and thus hasn’t gotten much attention around here. That’s the issue of findability.

OK, maybe this wasn’t 100% within the purview of the seminar, and maybe we have to tackle one problem at a time. There was limited time for the session, and we all have enough on our plates in trying to make our sites more usable.

But I think that while we try to create a more perfect Web presence for our libraries, we always have to have findability in the back of our minds. You can have the greatest site in the world, but if nobody is finding it, going to it, and actually using it, what’s the point? We need to keep this issue in mind while we’re embarking on redesigns - making our sites findable via searching, browsing, and completely by accident.

I’ve come to really like using Google Analytics. This was mentioned in the Web usability seminar, but in terms of the site overlay that you can use to see what parts of your site people clicking on. But it goes so much farther than that. I personally prefer the parts that tell you how people found your site to the parts that tell you what they did there. Armed with the knowledge of the sites they were referred from, the keywords they searched, and so on, it’s much easier to improve your site’s findability among your target audience. “How are they finding us?” Quickly turns into “How can we make finding us easier?”

That’s just an easy first step… I’d be interested to know what kinds of strategies libraries use to ensure that their sites are reaching their users??

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007 at 7:11 pm and is filed under Library Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.