2 posts tagged “library website”

I visited the teen website of the Prince George Public Library, http://www.lib.pg.bc.ca/teens, which is still being built up, but they seem like they are really on the right track with this site.

The design of the main page is anime-inspired, with a simple layout featuring some manga-style teens, as well as a photo of the library's youth advisory board. There are a number of book lists in a variety of genres of interest to teens, such as vampire books, chick lit, and fractured fairy tales. Some of the "genres" may be slightly mislabelled - I am not sure what they mean by "those teenage years" or "not everything is as it seems..."

They do also have a separate page for graphic novels, which is divided into YA and adult titles. As their graphic novels are not catalogued, these pages contain directions to find the graphic novels, as well as a list of series. They also provide a list of links for graphic novels (at the moment, there are only three listed, but all three are good), as well as a list of books the library holds related to drawing your own graphic novels (these titles are not hyperlinked to the catalogue, which I think would be helpful, as they are all catalogued non-fiction items).

The teen site also contains "entertainment" links for teens, which have a good collection of resources for things to do in Prince George (or "PG" as they seem to call it), as well as external sites such as Much Music, MSN, and Famous Players. Their "homework" page contains links to on-line resources such as dictionaries and encyclopedias, as well as the all-important "ask a librarian" link. Their section of "weblinks" is kind of confusing to me - these are links to to sites related to health information, job resources, and also a section for book lovers. This section might be better labelled "resources" or something like that.

There are also pages for their youth advisory board, as well as a page of resources for parents and teachers, as well as a page of recent book reviews.

The design of the pages is consistent, but I would add maybe a coloured background and some more images to the various pages - even just some shapes or something. It is all very basic with a white background, red menu icons, and the same anime characters on each page under the menu. Even if they changed the anime characters' presentation so that they have different "looks" depending on what the pages are about?

Overall, I think that the PG library is well on their way to developing a very useful, friendly teen space.

So, I looked at the teen space of the Worthington Public Library, which is set up like a blog: http://www.worthingtonlibraries.org/teen/blog/

I thought that it was all quite well designed, with lots of bells and whistles, like you would find on a teen's own blog, or a MySpace page or the like. The website includes features like a poll, this month asking which YA book movie adaptation was the worst (Eragon was in the lead last time I checked).

The blog was last updated two days ago, which seems reasonable to me (there wouldn't be something to say every single day, after all). There is information there about an upcoming program where they are making clocks out of old CDs, and the blog entry also includes information about other things you can do with old CDs (i.e. make a disco ball). They are also doing a recycled clothes designing competition along the lines of Project Runway, which seems like a fantastic idea.

The blog also includes information about newly arrived YA books (featuring short plot descriptions), and I was impressed that they talk about books in several different genres - some fantasy, some historical, some contemporary.

There are also a lot of fun little links to click on - like a map which charts where visitors are logging onto the website from (I think the teeny dot on N.S. is me!) - and links to library resources such as how to get a library card or homework help - and also a link to the library's MySpace page. The previous blog entries are all categorized so you can see entries about new (or award-winning) books, entries about events, programming, and the library itself.

Overall, I thought the design was busy enough to keep a teen interested, but not so cluttered that you can't find information. The overall design is OK - one of the better teen library sites, probably, but I would personally do away with the photos of wholesome, cheery-looking teens; and also the acid-wash-esque banner at the top of the page.

This is a great resource for the area's teens, who seem to be a valuable part of the library.