First of all, I hope everyone will respond to Marcie's poll. We can get some usage data elsewhere on which sections of the RW are used most often, but your input is important.
And now, I want everyone to pay attention very carefully -- the Recommended Websites page will not exist in its current form after the redesign. Keeping it as it is was never an option. (Sorry Marty, but it is broke. It's too big, its structure is unwieldy, and it is not worth the effort to keep it tidy and up to date.)
We will continue to have librarian-selected links, but they will be fewer in number and in fewer categories, and they will be integrated with other electronic resources.
I could seriously use your input on which categories and individual sites are most important and useful. For categories, I'm thinking: government, taxes, Loudoun County and Virginia, travel. But that shouldn't be the final list. I've said it before, but it bears repeating -- you guys know the patrons, the questions they ask, the resources that help answer them -- so help us out here.
Thanks.
Julie
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Travel has been in the bottom 10 for the last three months. I think many of the sites there are ones people already know (Expedia, Amtrak, WMATA, etc.) or can find by searching online so I'm not sure how useful it still is.
I think we should keep ESL - it's been #1 or #2 for three months, and it's an area of outreach the branches have been exploring for some time now.
Government, Taxes, Loudoun, Virginia - all good but maybe with a little pruning. Perhaps some of the Law sites can be incorporated into Virginia.
Good point on the travel, Marcie. It might be more useful to pull together resources for an online "book" display during heavy travel times and have more things like traveling with pets, travelers with disabilities, and other specialized topics.
I do think we could use a "spotlight" of some kind for timely topics, perhaps on a monthly basis. One might argue that Taxes would go in this category. So we can still hang onto some of our favorite sites and highlight them when appropriate. Marty can promote that great costume site he keeps raving about during Shakespeare week. ;)
Costumes!!?? It just happens to come up first....
Actually, patrons chiefly need costumes for school("Go as your favorite historical character") which leads to pictures of Jefferson or Einstein, or for parties needing 50's (Yuck) or earlier costumes. Again, books. In the last 20 some years, a few patrons have been interested in MAKING costumes, which the sites would help with, but 792s costumes for plays , making same, also help.
So actually I don't mind getting rid of Recommended Sites- just thought so long as we were doing it, do it right.
I'll be SO GLAD to have mytholgy gone, and the Religion section is just asking for trouble.
Will do poll ....soon. Am on desk most all today, Sat and Sun- It's what I do best, but hell on polls...mh
Uh-
with the new OPACs, apparently there is no way for the public to reach the RECOMMENDED SITES.
There used to be a thing to click on the old database, and there is such a RECOMMENDED SITES prompt on the "at home" Web page, but there is only a site to click at the bottom of the "homework" site. And it says, can't go there, have to go to Internet.
So, unless I'm wrong- which could certainly be- nobody can use RECOMMENDED SITES in the Library OPAC.
I realize this reveals that I don't use them, but I tried to get to BIG CHARTS, which is a RECOMMENDED SITE, not a database, and couldn't, except at my desk.
So any use of these will be only "at home" use, and we can't actually show them using Library resources. Keep this use limitation in mind when considering what should be available..
I think we need to include some health sites - don't know that stats support this however, so I think the numbers need to be looked at before we do it. WWW has always been used for consumer information such as health, so there is plenty to "integrate" from very well known authorities...
It's true that there is no direct link from the catalog to the recommended sites, but you can click on any page that takes you out of the catalog, like the logo in the upper left or the Catalog FAQs, and then get to them (usually at the bottom of the page). Not ideal but doable. And of course they're available on public Internet computers straight from the homepage.
I guess I would tend to use the sites during a transaction at the desk. It's not often I point someone to the Internet if they're already at the catalog station. I will show them databases from there. For me, the recommended sites are around the fourth step, depending on the question (catalog, databases, Internet in general, rec sites - if it got that far).
Question for Marty: As you can probably tell I haven't checked a catalog station from inside a branch in a while, so do you really get a message saying you can't use the rec sites from certain pages? I know Michael and/or Brian put up some "error" messages to prevent people from getting out to the Internet, but they in no way plugged every hole. If the error messages do pop up, we probably should keep that in mind with the redesign.
The Health sites have been in the bottom ten rec sites, rising as high as eighth in July. I can see linking to PubMed, NIH, CDC, etc. but this is one topic where we also might consider making a Spotlight for. Or an online tutorial or blog... (Sidenote: This redesign project could be a great opportunity to use some Web 2.0 ideas.) There are tons of reputable health sites, and instead of linking to them all (or even a few), it might be easier to show patrons how to recognize those reputable sites when using a search engine. (And of course steering the patron to the databases.)
Hey, Marcie I do like that last part on the health sites. That's always been my problem with them, they proliferated at lightspeed and they weren't bad sites, just way too many and often very specific... a tutorial on using search engines or linking off the major sites is pretty good idea IMHO... :) Oona
Hi, in again. It says "WARNING: DENIED Please use one of the Internet Sites."
Just tried, as you suggest, CATALOG FAQ, bottom of the pages. Says "WARNING: DENIED Please use one of the Internet Sites."
Far as I can see, can't get there from here.
Could put Paris Hilton's cell phone #. My point, such as it is, is that we can't use recommended Sites in house, can't show them except at desk, don't really care what you put in them, though I'll try to make them usable and respectable for use on our Web page.
What is that number? I've lost it...
Hey, just so you know, I just had ALTA-BABEL etc translate an Internet thing on how to kill bedbugs from English to Spanish, using one of my RECOMMENDED SITES.
So there...mh
So Marty, what is the Spanish for bedbug?
If you convert it into numbers, does it come out as Paris Hilton's cellphone number?
No, but it sets off Lindsay Lohan's ankle bracelet.
now guys.... I'm sure all they need is a shoulder to cry on....
Oh yeah, Reference question. In Spanish, bedbug is "chince."
Whether Paris Hilton is their patron saint, I leave to others...
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