New Digital Branch
Posted on March 5, 2008
Filed Under Digital Space, Future of Libraries, Library 2.0, Web 2.0, Web Design, Web Management |
Some of you might have noticed I’ve been dropping very vague hints on this blog about my library’s website redesign… well, no more vagueness! In fact - how about checking it out for yourselves? Go to webdev.tscpl.org and and see what my web team has been busy creating.
A few asides:
- If something doesn’t work, most likely we are still working on it - we’re mostly done, but it’s still a work-in-progress at this point
- We do our “soft launch” on March 17
- We “go live” officially on March 31
Feel free to check it out, let me know what you like/don’t like, etc! Some things I’m real excited about:
- RSS Everywhere. Think AADL - we are blog-based, for lack of a better term. You can subscribe to the whole site via RSS, or parts and pieces of it (i.e., if you just want to subscribe to the Business & Investments Guide, you can).
- Content is provided by library staff - more on this later, but we consider our Digital Branch to be an actual branch… and our library staff is providing content, answering comments, creating resources, etc.
- We’re trying to be very community focused - and we’re showing that via open commenting on the site, our IM Meebo widget prominently displayed, and via RSS feeds and multimedia (more photos and videos).
- Modern visual design and a new logo for the library
And this is just phase one - we are starting to plan future phases right now! That’s all I can think of at the moment… 2008 should be a wild ride for us!
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7 Responses to “New Digital Branch”
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Hi! Diana and I were checking out the new website. We LOVED it! The layout, colors, highlighted features, tools are all amazing. We had one little comment. We lost the top toolbar initially because of how it blends in with the black background. Diana’s thought: maybe swap the color choices for the rollover, and make that medium blue the tab color? Or my thought: make the text Italic so it stands out a bit. Thanks for sharing!
Very nice! I love the “rotating” content near the top.
I’m curious, what engine is running the site? Are you using an existing CMS or did your web team roll their own?
[...] Be sure and check out the “before” and “after” websites to see the full metamorphosis. David Lee King has more. [...]
Ditto! looks great… using a CMS?
I too would like to know if you’re using a CMS - and how many people are on your web team?
Looks great!
We are using expression engine, at expressionengine.com for our cms. Thanks for the kind comments! And Chellie and Diana - I’ll check into that - great catch.
The new site looks great. I like the “papercuts” section.