Like everyone else with a gmail account, I have 50 Gmail invites to give away. So if someone wants a gmail email account, email me (davidleeking [ at ] gmail [ dot ] com).
February 2005
From theofficeweblog: here are four alternatives to programs like Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop. The nice part? They’re free!
Try em out!
Trying out Google Maps. It’s very cool! I tried finding my home address – found it just fine. Then I tried my library.
First, I typed in “kansas city public library.” It did fine – found all but one of our branches, and found our old location for the main library. It also lumped in North Kansas City Public Library, which is another library system (but it’s about 5 miles from us, too).
Google Maps also gave the old version of our URL (www.kcpl.lib.mo.us) to all the branch libraries, but our normal url (kclibrary.org) to our main branch. Hmm…
Now I’m going to play “where’s Waldo” – to try and find the missing branch (Waldo Community branch). If I do this search (“kansas city public library” waldo), I find the Waldo, North-east, and Ruiz branches… and also find Kansas City, Kansas Public Library (yet another close but separate library system across the state line – also a good 5 miles away).
So I sent a “Send Feedback” email giving them the correct address of our new Central Library… we’ll see what happens.
Greg pointed out (thanks, Greg! I’m still learning…) that I didn’t quite create a podcast – there’s one more step involved. Apparently, with Blogger (my blog is hosted on Blogger), the RSS file Blogger spews forth is missing the essential ingredient that makes true podcasting work… and that’s an RSS 2.0 feed with enclosure tags (Blogger creates Atom feeds). RSS 2.0 enclosures basically allow a file (as in mp3 file) to be attached to an RSS entry. From there, people with podcast subscription software (like iPodder) automatically get the mp3 file for his/her listening enjoyment. Cool.
Welcome to the one and [probably] only podcast on Dave’s Blog. I was fiddling around with my Blogger profile, and noticed something about Audio Clips – there’s a text box named “Audio Clip URL,” and some accompanying text – “Find out how to get free Audio Clips.”
So I clicked it, and found a nifty free tool called AudioBlogger. It’s basically a fancy voice mail system – but it goes one step further. Once you’ve called the phone number and left your voice mail, Audioblogger saves your voice mail AND posts it to your blog! How cool is that?
So – this is an extremely easy way to create a podcast. No microphones, no sound editing software [and possibly nasty quality - I haven't actually listened to it yet], no converting .wav files to .mp3 files… just call, talk, and hit the # button on your phone.
Enjoy!
This is a great post: Web Pages That Suck presents the biggest web design mistakes in 2004. It’s funny, but it also mentions some good stuff in the process. here’s the list:
1. Believing people care about you and your web site: A website is about customer’s needs… not staff’s needs.
2. A man from Mars can’t figure out what your web site is about in less than 4 seconds: This follows the logic in Steve Krug’s book “Don’t Make Me Think” – he compares a website to a billboard on the highway. that’s how much time you have to connect with your website visitors.
3. Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS: Here’s a great quote from the article: “Remember, nobody gets excited about the tools used to build a house (“Please tell me what brand of hammers you used!”). People get excited about how the house looks and performs.”
4. Using design elements that get in the way of your visitors: they’re talking about splash pages, animations, bad Flash navigation, etc. But I could add Library Catalog navigation to this list! Why do some ILS systems wig-out when I hit the back button – and why am I forced to use their “special” back button? You get the idea.
5. Navigational failure: No links back to the home page, poorly worded links, etc.
6. Using Mystery Meat Navigation: This is a great way to describe links that you have to hover over in order to find out what they link to…
7. Thinking your web site is your marketing strategy: Library websites don’t do this so much… the website is PART of your marketing strategy – not ALL of it.
8. Site lacks Heroin Content: By “heroin,” they mean content that keeps website visitors coming back for more. That’s the goal of my library’s Subject Guides. Another related area is frequently updating information on your library websites – update that tax forms page before you offer it again!
9. Forgetting the purpose of text: When you want to use text – do so. Don’t use graphics or flash.
10. Too much material on one page: pretty clear.
They actually list reasons 11-14, too… go read the article, and take the advice to heart!
KCResearch now has a live URL…. www.kcresearch.org. You can read about our project, find out who is partnering with us, etc. This site will eventually include the search portal as well – we just started meeting with fretwell-downing about implementing their c-portal product for this project – it’s gonna be VERY COOL.
I have an article in February’s Computers in Libraries magazine about Kansas City Public Library’s new Subject Guide, topic-driven content push.
Here’s the blurb from InfoToday:
Little Boy Blue Goes High-Tech: Providing Customers with Topic-Driven Content
“Looking for a way to organize your Web links to maximize patron usage and minimize staff time? This article tells how the Kansas City Public Library’s Web team created Subject Guides–Web pages that contain a variety of content focusing on a single topic–to help users quickly find information.”
Enjoy the article! And while I’m at it, I’ll be at the Computers in Libraries 2005 conference coming up in march, speaking about targeting specific groups of customers with your library’s website. Should be an interesting talk. Here’s the blurb on that, as well (taken from the preliminary program):
Targeting Library Web Sites to Specific User Groups
10:30 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.
David King, Web/IT Project Manager, Kansas City Public Library
Meeting the needs of all users in one library site is often an impossible task. When should libraries develop Web sites or Web site areas that target special groups of users? What does a targeted Web site look like? David King focuses in “ready, aim, fire” and outlines methods for identifying how to meet specific user communities such as usability studies and mining Web usage statistics. He looks at ways to tailor sites to meet particular needs and discusses methods of marketing and promoting Web sites to specific audiences by using special tools such as RSS, IM, and/or e-mail. Find out how you can delight library Web site visitors by designing targeted sites that meet their needs.
