Web Design Process

My very first website, what an accomplishment!  This is a very, very simple site that I hope it could be developed some more later on in the near future in order to be able to use it at the library where I work (ZBPL).  I wanted to do something related to what I’ll be doing this summer with the tween group.  The purpose was to dedicated this simple website to the theme of the tween’s summer programming.

The process to create this site began with brainstorming which type of summer programming ideas to include.  In order to do this I prepared an outline with some possible ideas which developed into a more concrete plan.  From here I followed the storyboard template and created a rough draft of a storyboard based on my outline and began putting together my website using this draft.  After creating the firs page of three pages coded in html and one in pdf, the original storyboard changed.  Originally I created all the pages based on the first one and changed them I was adding the appropriate content.  This pages include external links and images and they are also linked internally.  The website maintained the white background color, letting the images bring brightness to it and add to the theme.  Few simple tables are also included in the in the pages and I chose a different font to add some identity to the site.

This was a very good learning experience overall.  It really helped to have the support of the other students to coach me along the way.  I’m extremely impressed by the creativity of all my other classmates, congratulations to all!

http://domin.dom.edu/students/martelsi/LIS753/zone.html

      

Web Page Review

The (CPL) Chicago Public Library’s web page was selected for review because I was interested in looking at a public library page.  The other two library web pages visited as background  research for the CPL web page review are the Morton Grove  Public Library and  the New York Public Library.  The guidance for this web page review is taken from a recommended article in Smashing Magazine.

I have never seen the CPL web page before this project and the first thing that impresed me the most was when the page came up, was the colors used in the page.  Even though the color white is uded as the background for text,they are only three colors, they are very distracting.  Also, the print text color used for information provided is shade of light green, consequently is not as easy to read as if was black or another dark color.  After getting over this first impression, I looked at the page again as if I was the patron.  The page is geared to a varied audience,  and available in two different languages, Spanish and Polish.

As I’m looking at the page and believe its user friendly.  The tabs on the top tool bar of the home page are self explanatory and categories for the information provided are organized in clearly in three columns.   At the right side of the page there is a column with a good variety of information but it looks too crowded and the colors are still distracting.  This web page provides interactivity between the user and the librarian and gives the user the option to choose the font point size and the language prefered, Spanish or Polish, these is a very good quality.  The language of the page is user-oriented and at the same time it has clear functions available.  Overall, the CPL’s web page has many good qualities but my recommendation is to take off some of the colors and less use of visuals.

Among the CPL web page and the other two libraries web pages, the Morton Grove web page follows all the principles of effective web design but the New York Public library wed page doesn’t.  This page is very crowded with content and uses to many visual elements and there is not much sense of orientation.   

Web Tool Review: Twitter

Twitter, a social networking to stay in touch with friends and family no matter where you are or what you’re doing.  Through Twitter a user can send “tweets”–updates, text-based posts, up to 140 characters by a short message service, instant messaging in mobile text (SMS).  It is considered a micro-blogging service, something like the old telegraph, using what is called a “short code”(40404)  This is free service and when the you sign-in you get a profile page where the updates are displayed and instantly delivered to other users who can be restricted to your circle of friends.  The updates can be received through Twitter, instant messaging, SMS, RSS, or email. 

The person behind this concept is Jack Dorsey.  The origens of this web tool began in a research and development project of San Francisco company, Obvious, LLC in May 2006.  The original purpose was to be used internally by the company and it was officially launched in October 2006.   It gained tremendous popularity and in 2007 won the South by Southwest Web Award in the blog category.  In 2007, Obvious, LCC company decided to launch this service under a separate entity which is now Twitter, Inc.   Among the users of this service are the Los Angeled Fire Department and The University of Texas at San Antonio. 

Twitter is a very simple and easy tool to use for quick and short communication with friends and family and find out “what are you doing?” at that moment.  The benefit of this web tool is that you are not overloaded with unnecessary information when receiving messages, they are meaningful and timely.  You–the user, are in control of the service, selecting who will be part of your circle of friends and when to stop following them.  To select your friends, you add your friends phone number in the in “Add Friends” and when you want to stop using this service, just visit thedelete setting on the page and click “Delete your Account”.  After you have invited your friends you can follow them or they can follow you.  Twitter has also a blog which helps beginner in this web tool to get familiarized with how it works. It also can be added as widget to your face page.

Some challenges that this tool may present is that if you have Twitter alerts turned on, you would be receiving more texting than usual. The solution for this situation is to upgrade your mobile service plan or turn off the mobile updates but keep an active account of Twitter on the web.

Here you’ll find a list of twittering libraries. 

Post #5 Content Display on Websites Made Easier

     Browsing through the biblioblogosphere I discovered very helpful information in the article Widgets, and Widgetry for Librarians: Copy, Paste, and Relax.  This article is available in the magazine Mutimedia & Internet @ Schools.  The author of the article explains how librarians can make their library’s website attractive to students with dynamic and changing content.  Not many skills are needed, just simply cutting and pasting.  Very encouraging!

     This article includes a list of different tools that can be easily used to customize websites.  The use of online videos–YouTube, blip.tv, Google Video, TeacherTube, is recommended as one to start practicing.   For easy chatting, the meebo me widget is considered a handy tool for another way of instant messaging and to show off what your library is doing, the flickershow is the recommended tool.    Sharepoint is another tool mentioned in the article, this tool can be excellent to make a connection between the library and the schools. 

     From Google, the author recommends two widgets: Google Calendar and Google Maps;  he explains how easy is to embed them in a webpage.  He also suggests that to share links through the library’s website , the linkroll option from del.icio.us is a good choice, and to display any RSS feeds a tool that can be used is Feed2JS. 

     As a final advise the author presents the point of where to paste the type of content and how to put them in practice to get the most benefit from them.

Post #4 Blogs in the Historical Context of the American Press

The interesting idea that the history of blogging can be traced to the days of the American Revolution and of Benjamin Franklin is presented in the book The Rise of the Blogosphere by Aaron Barlow, Assistant Professor of English at New York City College of Technology of the City University of New York.  This book brings insight to the readers about the cultural and historical account of the blog and analyzes a new technology that is becoming a part of the everyday life of Americans.  The “blogosphere”–online political blogs– have grown in importance becoming a new development in American journalism.  The author of this book considers that the “blogosphere” is a regression to the early American press, where the public opinion–”citizen journalism”, was carried through newspapers, pamphlets, and public debate. 

With the press becoming more commercial during the 19th century and with the pratice of professional journalism, the public opinion was removed from politics.  Since the 20th century up to date the main stream media have control over most of the news sources but the Internet now offers alternatives leading to a new era of “citizen journalism” through the blogosphere.  The American people is adapting to this new way of public opinion and libraries as information centers should be a place where people can have accessibility to be part of this new movement.

Post#3 Freedom of Expression & the Web

Browsing through the American Libraries Journal of Sept. 2007, in the section of Information Technology, I came across the article “Free and Freedom, They’re Not the Same Thing.”  This is an interesting topic but what it has to do with technology?  Well, the columnist discusses the issue of intelectual freedom, the impact of the internet and the freedom of expression that the Web has allowed to everyone, especifically through the use of blogs to express and debate our views in a democratic way.  The question that the columnist posted was “do they [blogs] really allow freedom of expression?  As he compares the columnist as a journalist without the inconvenient restrictions of integrity, accuracy, fairness, and professionalism; he realizes how serious he takes his role of journalist when blogging.  He also presents the point that information can be digitally recorded forever and that it should also be considered that the speech that we freely express can be in some way, sometime challenged.

The article concludes stating how blogs are becoming part of the search results of information available through the internet and how databases like EBSCO and LexisNexis include blogs as part of their news indices.  Forseeing into the future of how blogging is becoming part of journalism, the author of the article mentions that blogs might sometime be nearly indistinguishable from editorials in search rank. In relation to the great number and variety of blogs available he says that, “there is a lot of freedom out there and most of it is freely available–the blogosphere is intellectual freedom writ large, but we must sacrifice a little security for that kind of freedom.”

After reading this article I realized how important is that we all that are participate in one form or another in the blogosphere should also take this role seriously and be aware to use our freedom of expression in a proper way.

Post#2: Which is your type?

If you are not sure of what type of technology user  you are, the PEW Internet and American Life Project has a very intersting project called Typology of Information and Communication Tecnology Users.  They have posted at their website a quiz  of ten questions for you to answer in order to identify the typology of the group which you belong.  After answering the quiz you can select Calculate My Results and then a new page will tell you which group you fit in and describes the characteristics of that group.

Well, I took the quiz and the results revealed that I closely resemble the Connectors typology group, I believe that’s pretty close to the type of technology user I am.  This is how this group is described, making up 7% of the American population, the Connectors’ collection of information technology is used for a mix of one-to-one and one-to-many communications.  This group are participants in cyberspace but not at a rate of the Omnivors.  Interestingly one of the basic characteristic to describe this group mentions that the Connectors suspect their gadgets could do more for them, and sometimes need help in getting new technology to function properly.  Guess I have a way to go to be promoted to the Omnivors!

Elsie

Library Pictures

If you want to see pictures of beautiful libraries, bookmark this link.

Elsie

Post #1 Librarian Trading Card

 This is my first official post to the blog, the Librarian Trading Card.

Hello Class!

All this that we’re learning in LIS 753 is very interesting.

Something to share with all of you who like music, www.trans-siberian.com 

Enjoy,

Elsie