Week 6 - School Library Websites

I spent almost a decade playing in an eight - twelve piece ska/rock band. Starting out in my freshman year of high school, my closest friends and I did all that we could to get our name and music out there. Sure, the recording qualities were terrible (I think we used a tape recorder and converted the audio to MP3 format via a computer program) and the images we had taken of us were from disposable Kodak camera (that we purchased digital discs of). Regardless, we took all of this information and did the following:

- Submitted our MP3s to http://www.mp3.com
- Started a blog
- Created some sort of online photo catalog for our pictures
- and last but not least, we created a website...

I should begin by saying we started small; using Yahoo's Geocities site builder. One of our friends that was also in a local band started to excel at HTML writing. Of course, his site looked better, more professional, and more put together. This prompted me to do some HTML learning of my own.

As time went on, I probably authored and co-authored close to 12 web pages for our band, dabbling with different styles, first all text and linked images, eventually using I-maps (Image maps) and internally linked and displayed blogs, pop up images, and flash. Needless to say, at the beginning the last thing on my mind was the accessibility of the website. All I wanted was something to showcase our name, photos, sound, and show information. I bit off more than I could chew more often than not, which led to some negative criticisms. It was hard to take but they were, more or less, constructive in nature. I learned from my mistakes and eventually tinkered until I fixed whatever bugs were plaguing the site. However, every time there was something wrong with the site it personally affected me, bringing me down and making me feel inadequate. Perhaps this is just my personal take on my own products; anything that stems from authoring or ownership is an extension of me.
This is an attitude that most characterizes what it necessary for school library websites.

In the Johnson article, he states, "What few people understand is that building a good usable, accessible, attractive school website that meets the needs of students and teachers is every bit as difficult and as complicated as building a good, usable, accessible, attractive school building that meets the needs of students and teachers." (Johnson, 46)

That being said, it is safe to say that website building, be it for a school library or for a personal menagerie of facts and pictures is a very delicate process. There are many different aspects that need to be addressed, at the forefront accessibility. Within the Kaner & Fielder article they state, "Different people have different needs, constraints and preferences, but user sub populations are often insufficiently considered. Users with special needs are of particular interest to both school and public libraries..." (Kaner and Fielder, 2)

As a school librarian you will eventually become acquainted with and discover what your user population is dominated by. You will presumably tailor your collection of materials to what is considered popular. Your reference section will be dominated by the books or database subscriptions that seem to be of most use. Your media will be probably be the most latest and greatest pieces of technology that your school board can legitimize a need for and provide the funding towards. This is great, really great in fact, knowing your students and your library usage. One thing that we cannot forget though is the the physical place of a school library is only half of the picture; the other half is the website. The website will inevitably be used by students, parents, teachers, and other faculty. It is safe to say that you cannot tailor a website (or anything for that matter) entirely for a certain population, but what you can do is follow a guide of points to hit, especially in regards to general and special accessibility.

http://www.w3.org/WAI/gettingstarted/

W3.org was one of the websites that was always there for me when I was starting out in my HTML endeavors. I will never claim to be an expert nor a guru. If it was not for these people I would have been lost. This specific page deals with web accessible for students with disabilities. There are many other pages linked up throughout the site.

I was always a proponent of people working together on the internet. This could be websites, blogs, etc. Metatagging is something that I think could be embraced wholeheartedly on a functioning school library website. In the Berger chapter that dealt with Social Bookmarking she details how this phenomenon is not necessarily a phenomenon at all, but an integral piece of the puzzle that is the internet.

(Berger, 51)

I believe that this model can be applied to website building as well. All of the popular tagging and bookmarking sites, such as Diigo, del.icio.us, and Magnolia can be employed in a school library website efficiently, providing a step up to accessibility all around as well as user simplicity. Information is out there, and in a school setting it can be difficult to find. Navigating to find it should not always be a trek, and this is where librarians come in.