Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Los Angeles Public Library

1) intended audience;

The entire population of Los Angeles! The LAPL system has as many as 71 different libraries, and Los Angeles has one of the most diverse populations in the country, so the website has to be extremely broad with a lot of information to cater to a wide array of patrons.

2) usefulness of content;

The content is very useful for all different types of users. Of course it contains the catalog and online access to their databases. But the home page of the website also highlights some of the more popular and well established collections, such as the Photo Collection. E-Media is also a prominent link available on the home page, which includes e-books, music, audio books, etc. ready for download right from the website. Information about events and exhibits for all ages (and those geared toward the spanish speaking community are accessible. There's information for interested volunteers and donors, and of course there is a chat feature now available for further questions to be asked right from your computer. You can even reserve one of their computers from home (although why you would do that when you already have a computer with which to do so, I don't know), and you can check your account and renew items, or even pay your overdue fines from online.

3) consistency of design;

The design somewhat consistent with some areas of uniqueness. Headings are all in blue and supporting text is in black with an easy to read font. A couple of the links from the home page take you to special locations in which the online presence is a bit different than what you find on their home page or other major links. For instance, clicking on teens, kids, or adult literacy will take you a splash page and then their home page that looks considerably different from the main home page.

4) ease of navigation

It's pretty easy to navigate through the home page and zero in on what you need. There is a nice visible search engine right at the top to quickly search the catalog. Since our patrons are so used to search engines on computers these days, I thought it was a terrific way to do a quick search for those not too familiar with OPAC. The teen page is cute but a little to busy, making it more difficult to navigate through. The children's page however is cute without being distracting, it's use of blocks and large print text make it easy to navigate through. I had a bit of trouble with the databases. A little bit too much info. is squeezed onto that first page when you enter that section. They need to make the print a bit larger and easier to see in this section, it's intimidating/overwhelming when you first enter.

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