I like turtles :3

Woo! What a great week! Finished comp task 1 for Social Media class :D

Just to recap I'll list my other social media accounts:

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/emmajoy.james

Twitter
https://twitter.com/EmmaJoyJames

Pinterest
http://pinterest.com/emmajoyjames/

Oh my gosh, I <3 Pinterest, I can't believe I've been missing out for so long, haha! I made one Library Studies board and another called Literature Love, but I'm hoping both will count as the two library boards I need for the comp task.

Apart from that, I worked a lot and I've been studying. Haven't done as much homework as I probably should have, haha ;) Buuuut, what else did I do, oh I bought a copy of Slaughterhouse-Five which I'm pretty excited about. But I can't read it yet because I'm still working my way through the uncut version of the The Stand. 1400+ pages later...

OH! AND a friend of mine gave me the entire Batman animated series! Super excited about that! Buuuut I can't start that yet either because I'm currently watching season 2 of American Horror Story which is AWESOME!!

I'd better go and get some more work done.

Here is a baby turtle eating a strawberry.

5 Resources for Creating Library Websites

1. Public Library Website Guidelines

 Published by the State of Rhode Island, this webpage contains a generic list of information that should be included in your library website. It focuses on public libraries, but the information could easily be applied to academic or special libraries. It contains a basic list of Do's and Dont's when designing a web site and some neat little links to further resources.

2. WEBMONKEY


Webmonkey has been floating around the internet for years. It is a community as well as a site for tutorials, cheat sheets, colour charts and code snippets that savvy web designers can borrow for their website. I have personally used webmonkey for hex colour codes. For those of you who aren't familiar with this term, check our the webmonkey page here: http://www.webmonkey.com/2010/02/color_charts/

3. W3C

This website is probably a little heavy going for people unfamiliar with web design and development, but the W3C is responsible for creating the guidelines and protocols that govern the world wide web. You can read more about their mission statement here: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/mission.html. This website is good because it also includes design and development information such as 'What is HTML?' or 'What is CSS?', 'What are graphics used for?' and a plethora of other questions pertaining to the creation and maintenance of websites. They also include links to other websites for tutorials and information.

4. Library Patrons

This resource was brought to the attention of the class and I thought it was brilliant, as well as shattered that I didn't even think of it! Of course the patrons are the absolute best resource for designing the library website because they are the ones that have to use it! I think the more often and the more ways patrons are asked about the website and its services the better for the library. There might even be a web design guru hiding there!

5. Library Collections

And of course the final resource which I also overlooked when thinking about designing websites, the actual library collection itself. There are entire journals dedicated to designing websites with tutorials and cheat sheets and code snippets. Any books published on HTML or the like would probably be outdated, but they could provide an excellent crash course in the basics. Online resources as well might have links to video tutorials and things. The library collection should probably be your first stop when it comes to designing your libraries website!

Pros and Cons of FREE Software and Sites

I've already posted a link from another blog in regard to this but I'm going to recycle the information for my competency task. Here is the link to the original post: Pros and Cons of Free Software and Sites from Margie's blog.

Pros and Cons of FREE Software and Sites

In regard to website development and maintenace.

Pros:

• It's FREE!!!!!!!
• It's simple
• It's user friendly
• It's well known
• Gives you a good platform to share your message - creates a ready made community
• I don't have to worry about the technical stuff
• I trust the security is good

Cons:

• You can get hacked if it's not a reputable supplier
• You have to follow their rules
• It's not always clear about what they do with your information
• It's not always clear what they do with your images etc
• I have to look at advertising
• The software is often limited and I have to pay more to get the good stuff
• I'm often constrained by what I can change in the software
• Less choices about what I can do
• Poor customer service
• They could close down at any time
• It could go out of fashion and not be updated
• It's often hard to get your information and content off the sites to transfer them somewhere else

Important Features of a Library Website

When designing a library website I think there are a number of key features that should be included to ensure that the website meets the needs of its patrons and correctly serves the purpose for which it was created.

Library websites need:

• They need to be user friendly and attractive, while its not essential for the website to look good I think it adds to the user experience and encourages patrons to use the online service.
• They need to include all of the relevant information in order to answer any questions that patrons might have.
• The pages need to be set out logically in order for patrons to be able to find the information that they require in regard to the library collection or fines or booking fees, etc.
• Access to the catalogue needs to be provided so that patrons can search for the book they want without having to physically visit the library. I think this service is essential in this era of modern technology.
• They need to include relevant news for library patrons to provide that window into the community and generate interest, get people involved.
• There must be contact options because people will always have something to complain about, haha, but more importantly they may have questions or may not be able to find the information that they require and so they will need to contact library staff.
• Different language options reflecting the demographic are important because someone might need to know which languages are included in the library collection, but also a patron accessing the site might speak a language other than english and require information. 
• I also think it is important these days for a library website to include social media access, and I think it is important for libraries to have a social media presence.

The above points were written with local public libraries in mind, but the requirements are mostly the same for academic and special libraries (in my opinion).

A blog for Margie's Social Media and Web classes 2013: Messages to you using blog

A blog for Margie's Social Media and Web classes 2013: Messages to you using blog: The questions was asked - If Margie needed to send an urgent message to all students, how would she do it? Via Web/CT? Via Blogger? Vias...

An older post on Margie's blog, but the task is to share a post from someone elses blog, so I chose this one. Enjoy.

What I did this week. So far.

The first task for today is to write about my week, such as it were.

I worked alot.

On Sunday my best friend's daddy went to hospital so I stayed at her house to support her.

Then I did some more work.

On a lighter note, some awesome metal gigs have been announced! Hell on the Bay featuring my favourite band Ne Obliviscaris, Behemoth, KORPIKLAANI,and Steven Wilson who performed guest vocals on an album by my other favourite band Opeth.

This is Steven Wilson :

Rock on \m/