Opening a New Chapter and Website
Client: Williams Bay Library
Location: Williams Bay, Wisconsin
Projects Completed:
- Brand new web site
- Custom graphics and buttons
- Custom slides
- Easy to edit news section
- Brand new logo
- Custom quick search and renew buttons
- Search engine optimization
The Barrett Memorial Library was one of our very first web design projects. The first site we created was completed several years ago and represented a complete re-boot from what they currently had. The site worked in all major browsers and was compatabile with IE6, which was a huge undertaking, even a couple years ago. The site was built in straight HTML & CSS with a touch of javascript to make the menu tabs work.
The new site is built on a very robust, open source content management system. We researched dozens of top library websites, including the New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago Public Libraries to determine what the big city libraries were doing. The reason for this was due to a recent ALA Technology Study that examined the websites of 700 different libraries across the Country. As some had expected, the big city libraries consistantly beat the smaller libraries in every area that the ALA study examined. From social networking and blogs to signing up for a library card online. The majority of big city libraries possessed the technological features that ALA was looking for, while the smaller libraries were lucky to feature any of them.
One of the biggest challenges a library faces with their website is editing or changing the site once it has been created. Having to hire a web developer or keep a technical person on staff is almost never feasible for a small library. So we took the time to customize the backend of our content management system to make it as easy as possible for non-technical staff to edit. We like to say, "If you can edit a Microsoft Word Document, you can edit our sites."
