How essential is a school library homepage and what elements are the most important? (Lesson 12)

Based on the concept of having the school library function as a “Learning Commons” at the heart of every school, it should also be accessible and visible from wherever you are.  Therefore, I believe that it is essential for a library to have a website with a well formatted and functional homepage.  As Joyce Valenza states, “Your library web page is your second front door.”  By providing users, mainly the students and staff, with a way to access the library and its resources from online helps let the library play a more central role in the users lives.

There are many important elements of a school library homepage which make it attractive and useful.  The school library homepages of Dr. Charles Best, Prince of Wales and Elgin Park Secondary exemplify many of these elements.

The Charles Best homepage includes widgets allowing the site to be easily translated into Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Italian, German, Portuguese, Spanish or French.  This feature makes the information on the homepage accessible to many more users who might not be proficient in English.  The Best homepage also offers a variety of links including world news from the Globe and Mail as well as links to popular blogs.

The Prince of Wales library homepage has a reference desk.  From this reference desk the user can find links to different types of resources include homework help and community resources.  These links go beyond classroom and library activities and offer ways for users to get involved with extra curricular activities.  The Prince of Wales homepage also denotes whether links or resources are Canadian by placing a red maple leaf beside them.  I think that this is an important element as it helps show students where the content is from.  So many resources that we use in Canadian schools is American.  By identifying and highlighting Canadian resources, they will be more likely to find relevant information.  I also like that this homepage highlights the new content in bright yellow.  This helps advertise new resources to students.

The Elgin Park website incorporates many of the same elements as the previous sites.  What I specifically like about our school homepage is that there is a great deal of white space.  I find that many sides overwhelm the user with content.  Our school library’s homepage is very simple and therefore the desired resources and links can easily be found by the user.  I also like that our teacher-librarian includes videos of the week or month which help to advertise new resources or films related to items in the library.  This is an excellent way of engaging students with library resources.

Since I am not an expert on creating websites and have never made one before I do not have any suggestions for all of you about to tackle this task.  However, I would encourage you to keep the website simple with lots of white space.  I would also encourage you to have easy to navigate links with engaging and eye catching “extras” wherever you can.  Finally, I would encourage you to create your school library homepage with some TLC because it is worth it.  As Joyce Valenza states, “Your library web page is your second front door.”