Web Development and Design Track - Internet Librarian 2007
Internet Librarian is one of those conferences that energizing you. Dozens of new ideas come to mind and you're able to blend your knowledge and experience with the speakers and come up with new insights. The track was a mixture of clear overviews and practical advice on topics, in depth user research reports that save us all time by not having to replicate studies and moments of inspiration.Here were a few highlights for me:
I always enjoy listening to David Lee King, Digital Branch & Services Manager at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library and he was a perfect person to start the track. He brought the Web 2.0 planning and hype down to the practical level with with his focus on Why, What, Who and How.
The Evidenced Based Design session with Frank Cervone, Assistant University Librarian for Information Technology, Northwestern University, and Amanda Hollister, Web Services Librarian, Memorial Library, SUNY Cortland described how they are bringing evidence based practice and data into the web design processes. Amanda showed new information mined from path data as they explored the breadcrumbs that their users left as they browsed through the site to find "false" paths. I loved it when Amanda did her happy dance at having a N of 30,000. :-)
Jeff Wisniewski, Web Services Librarian, University of Pittsburgh had the audience laughing and nodding as he delivered one of his punch lines about the New Rules of Web Design ... when you're planning to redesign your web site you should:
Inspiration for Your Library Redesign session truly was inspiring. Bennett Ponsford, Digital Services Librarian, & Christina Hoffman Gola, Undergraduate Specialist Librarian, Texas A&M University Libraries described the focus groups and testing that they did with faculty and students exploring whether they wanted to use any Web 2.0 tools on the library site from tagging, to wikis, to RSS feeds, etc. There answers ranged from zero interest to some in selected audiences - check out their presentation when it gets posted to the Internet Librarian site.
Eric Reynolds, Web Content Manager, Johnson County Library inspired and awed the audience with her insightful and fun presentation about what her team learned from 4000 years of art about designing their new library site.
Frank Cervone and I were back with another round of Cool Tools and the slides are here:
Wrapping off the day with advice for libraries that are doing web design on shoestring was Sarah Houghton-Jan (aka the LibrarianiInBlack) with 20 useful sites, tools and tips.
Tags: design | il2007 | internet+librarian | library | web development
