LMC Websites: The World's Window into your Library, Your Students' Window to the World

           Websites are an convenient way for library media centers collect and distribute important information.  They are also a great way to promote the media center.  Teachers, students, and parents can easily access a LMC website any time of the day or night to find school information or retrieve many important resources.  So what kinds of things are crucial to have on a LMC website?  The best websites I have seen include these types of information: contact information, an easy-to-use OPAC, easy access to age-appropriate databases, links to educational resources arranged logically (by grade or subject), and a format that is inviting (not intimidating!) for the user.

Each website I viewed contained a homepage with the school’s mailing address and phone number with the library’s extension, the media specialist’s email address, and the hours of operation.  These items were displayed prominently and in many cases there were links to the email addresses so that they could be quickly and easily clicked for access.  Some pages, including the one from North Elementary School (my favorite example) (http://north-lmc.nes.noblesville.schoolfusion.us/modules/groups/integrated_home.phtml?gid=1613599&sessionid=8bb2783ab722bf08edb7708e97e00049&t=) included a welcome message that introduced the library and its resources to patrons.  North’s welcome was set up as a slideshow- very engaging! 

Each website also had links to its own OPAC, usually through Destiny.  A special feature of North’s webpage was that it also linked to neighboring libraries’ OPACs, including the local public library, the library at the University of Illinois, and the Library of Congress.  This is an idea that I hadn’t previously considered, but I think it’s a great idea to (at the very least) link to your local public library’s OPAC or webpage.

The databases and other web resources on the LMC sites I viewed were geared toward the populations they served.  Those intended for students were displayed prominently, either from the home page or from pages sorted by grade level.  For instance, North’s site has links to the databases on the homepage and also contains links to pages with resources appropriate for each grade level.  I like this organizational system, my only complaint is that the grade level links, though (awesomely) sorted by curriculum topic like mini-pathfinders, are just text.  This is fine for the older grades, but I think that primary students would have an easier time clicking on icons.  It would be cool to make the grade level resource pages in a wiki format, that way teachers could act as contributors and would be able to add great resources or delete old links without the media specialist having to act as the ‘middle man’.

I love that most of the sites I viewed had collections of resources for teachers, including links to standards and copyright information, important district information, and library policies and procedures.  Some even had ‘cheat sheets’ for how to use library equipment like LCD projectors and Smart Boards.  On my ideal webpage, these ‘cheat sheets’ would be video tutorials- vodcasts!

Another important aspect of the media center’s webpage is the ‘What’s New?’ news section that most sites I visited contained.  In this section, the media specialist could post important news related to the media center, such as book fair dates, author visits, or new titles in the library.  The news section might cover the school as a whole, with upcoming school-wide events or a lunch menu calendar.  Since many schools have weekly video news productions, these could be posted to the ‘What’s New?’ section of the website as well. 

More and more of these pages are also connected to social media, with Facebook pages and Twitter accounts.  These resources help keep older students and parents in the loop about what is happening in the library or at school.  They are another great way to stay connected to the world outside the library’s four walls.

The best library websites, in my opinion, were the ones whose formats were geared directly to the audience they were intended to serve.  I liked elementary libraries that had inviting, colorful backgrounds and simple text in easy to read fonts.  These websites, typically geared toward young learners, were full of icons that provided students with obvious visual representations of the pages they would access by clicking on them (see image from North Elementary’s website for an example of this below.)  Their links for students were grade-level appropriate.  For instance, I saw several schools that served primary students had the Pebblego  Database, which is one that I think is particularly useful for children just learning how to use a database for research.  Middle school websites were still colorful and exciting, but their links were more text oriented and contained links to resources with higher reading levels.  High School media center website design uses a bolder, more mature layout with many text links to content appropriate for advanced students.

All in all, I was excited by the possibilities I saw on the library media center websites I visited.  The webpage is an area where the media specialist can really show off his or her library while providing a good collection of resources for patrons.  These kinds of websites will take lots of effort to build and maintain, but in the end I think the hard work will pay off when LMC website use goes up.