Thursday Thirteen #23

Wanna check it out?!?

Do you want to know why I've been so busy this past three months? I've been working on a thesis of sorts, the MPL website. (I wanted to wait to post this until after my last day of working there...you know, in case I was being stalked or something!)

1. First and foremost, this website kicks butt because I built it! (Just little ole Suzy and her hubby, we put this thing together from scratch - but I'm not biased or anything... Heh.)
2. Secondly, I got school credit for it. (Of course there was an ulterior motive!) This was a part of my internship for my MLIS (Masters in Library and Information Science). Actually, the internship was just supposed to be the children's library web pages, but the project really morphed into a complete package. And I got a perfect score on it, just in case you're wondering.
3. The site really includes lots of local flavor, which I think is what public libraries should be all about. (Here comes my soapbox...) A library should be a community center and public forum as well as a place to get books and whatnot. You can get books anywhere. And you can get information in lots of different places. You can even go to a "community center." But where can you go to get all of these things at once? (Do I sound like a commercial?!?) Anyway, I think it is an important concept. And when libraries don't cater to their communities, I think they've lost sight of who they serve in the first place. (Okay, I'm stepping off the soapbox, now.)
4. The artwork on the site. The header on the tops of the pages are done by G.H.Pugh, who is the local artist. (Check out the full painting in the "History" section.) And while it doesn't compare to the painting, the graphics and such were put together by me and hubby in Adobe Photoshop.
   
5. The children's photo page. There are pictures of storytimes in there... and if you look closely, you'll see yours truly. There is even one of me sticking out my tongue! (We had a tongue-painting project.)
6. Lots of PDF's. There are tons of forms you can download off of the site from home, like library card applications or volunteer forms, whatever. Also, the policies are accessible. The best part of doing that is you can never lose them! The master copies are right there online. (And working at a public place, you know that noone ever replaces the last copy of anything!)
7. The money that was saved by doing it ourselves. I checked out one of the other nearby libraries who had their site professionally done, the OSPL, and they must have paid around $4,000. I calculated what the MPL site (which has two CGI forms and over 40 pages) would have cost by the prices listed on the OSPL designers site - over $3550!!! (Don't you think they should dedicate an encyclopedia set or a sidewalk to me, or something?!?)
8. It's current. That in itself is a feat. I just hope it stays current. (This is a BIG concern of mine.)
9. It has some awesome links in it. By doing this project, I found some really cool sites!
10. The active forms, like the "suggestion box" and the "ask a librarian" forms. CGI is hard!!! I still don't really get it!
    
11. The "Babies and Books" pages. That was one of the first pages I did (because I was doing the baby storytimes). Check out the "Rhymes and Songs" page - these are some of the songs that have been trapped in my head since January!
    
12. You can actually find stuff in this site! I hate library websites that are poorly organized. It's like, aren't libraries supposed to be leaders in organizing things?!? For real!
    
13. Finally, the sheer amount of work that went into this project. In speaking with the chick that did the site 10 years ago, she said she spent an entire year on it. Well, I only spent 3 months, but most of it was on my own time. It's like I've given birth or something! And I am a proud mama.
    

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