1. Bringing It All Together WiLSWorld Conference July 19, 2005

2. Subject Guides  What are they?  Starting points for finding information in specific topic areas  Current group of 28 with one in development  Topics can change or be added at any time

3. Subject Guides  What’s Included?  Databases  Selected websites  Catalog Links  ebooks  Classes  Events  RSS Feeds  Librarian Notes

4. Subject Guide Main Page

5. Business & Investments Subject Guide

6. Business & Investments Subtopic Page

7. Subject Guides  Why bring it all together?  One stop shopping for patrons  Difficult to find subject information located throughout the website. “Needle in the haystack”  Work smarter and reduce repetition of work

8. Planning and Implementation  Initial plan to merge databases with selected website grew in discussion to include all subject information  Success would require additional staff resources to implement and maintain  Proposal submitted to management to include work on the website in the professional librarian’s duties

9. Planning and Implementation  In 2001 Hennepin County Library began staffing their website  Web Services Department  Web Administrator 1.0  Reference Services Librarian.6  Adult Services Librarian.6  Teen Services/Accessibility Librarian 1.0  Special Projects Librarian.5

10. Planning and Implementation  Website is a door to our public with an expected 6.5 million visits in 2005  Website is a resource for all staff and patrons  Logical to use the expertise and skills of library staff throughout the system who use the resources daily to provide content

11. Planning and Implementation  Proposal to administration that work on the website including content for the Subject Guides would be part of a professional librarian’s job at Hennepin County Library  Not an entirely new concept

12. Planning and Implementation  In 1996 Hennepin County Library began providing selected websites for the public  Work was done on a voluntary basis by library staff with various levels of success and commitment  The New Subject Guide pages needed to have formal commitment and accountability from librarians and supervisors in order to be fully developed

13.  Formal proposal presented to Senior Management  3 points strengthened the proposal for management  24/7 success due to wide participation  Online tools allow easy maintenance  Training and ongoing support would be provided Planning and Implementation

14.  Proposal fully supported by Hennepin County Administration  Assignment of work on the website is now part of the job duties of many HCL librarians  Supervisors matched librarians with subjects of individual interest or areas of expertise Planning and Implementation

15.  Half day workshop planned and developed for librarians  Tools  Selection and maintenance criteria for websites  Exercises developed to illustrate evaluating websites  Discussion of writing for the web and system conventions  Collection Management department involved Planning and Implementation

16. How does it work?  Currently 42 librarian selectors for Subject Guides  Staff had little ‘coding’ experience  Website redesigned to allow easy maintenance for staff and changed display for public

17. How does it work?  The Subject Guides are custom database driven pages using Coldfusion  Each portion of page saved in a table and all the tables are inter-related  When a page is selected they are dynamically built from the database via the Coldfusion programming  No longer using static html pages

18. How does it work?  Forms created by Web Services staff for librarians to input content  Additional tool created to allow librarians to provide the Librarian Note content

19. How does it work?  Content for sidebar/feature column added if appropriate to the subject  Not necessary to include all pieces to offer this type of display  Content modular and you can select the parts that you can support and update  Kansas City Public Library uses a similar idea for presentation of content http://www.kclibrary.org/guides/

20. How is it going?  Subject Guides were launched on December 15, 2004 with very positive reviews  A few Librarians took ‘coaxing’ to take ownership of their assigned subject  Coordinator sends monthly e-mail to selectors to remind them to update the Librarian notes  Includes tips, interesting websites, and some best practices information

21. How is it going?

23.  Librarians no longer just concentrate on the physical location and patrons  This is a slow paradigm shift for the role of the professional librarian  Change is not restricted to Subject Guides with opportunities throughout the website for staff to provide content and apply their expertise

24. Future  Subject guides are only the beginning for us and are a prototype for other areas of our website  Our TeenLinks area is going through a redesign that will adopt many of the Subject Guide features and tools

25. Subject Guide Selector Tools

33. Web Application Software  Provides additional functionality  Draw information from databases, web services, etc.  Examples:  ColdFusion  ASP  PHP  perl

34. ColdFusion Dataflow

35. Subject Guide Template

36. Database example

37. Website example

38. Database example

39. Catalog searches example

40. eBooks example

41. News feeds example

42. Classes example

43. Events example

44. Custom add-ins

45. Keyword Searching  Database content allows: –flexibility in search –flexibility in display –integrated results Additional features (e.g. spell check) Google SpellCheck API

46. grahicnovels --> graphic novels IDEO --> VIDEO habit of high effective people --> habit of highly effective people

47. Additional Information  LITTLE BOY BLUE GOES HIGH-TECH: PROVIDING CUSTOMERS WITH TOPIC-DRIVEN CONTENT David King. Computers in Libraries. Westport: Feb 2005. Vol. 25, Iss. 2; p. 10 (3 pages) LITTLE BOY BLUE GOES HIGH-TECH: PROVIDING CUSTOMERS WITH TOPIC-DRIVEN CONTENT  Where Does That ELECTRONIC RESOURCE FIT on the Library Web Page? Todd R Digby. Computers in Libraries. Westport: Jan 2004. Vol. 24, Iss. 1; p. 6 Where Does That ELECTRONIC RESOURCE FIT on the Library Web Page?  Following the Yellow Brick Road to Simplified Link Management Nicole C Engard. Computers in Libraries. Westport: Apr 2005. Vol. 25, Iss. 4; p. 10 (6 pages) Following the Yellow Brick Road to Simplified Link Management

48. Christine Clifford Reference Services Librarian cclifford@hclib.org Glenn Peterson Web Administrator gpeterson@hclib.org http://www.hclib.org/extranet