CIL 2008: Learning From Newspapers/Politics
Library Revolution had the following interesting post about the 2008 Computers In Library talk on Newspapers and Politics:
“Libraries can learn so much by looking at what other industries have done, the challenges they have faced, and the concerns they are thinking about when building these online community interfaces.
Especially helpful here was the notion of examining your users in terms of basic “types” and examining ways the site could address the habits and needs of those kinds of customers. For example, “Loyal Readers” tend to go straight to the home page and browse… so they need content on the home page to cater to those habits in much different ways from “Accidental readers” who find the content based on a search and have a single article focus… and therefore need different features to engage them.
Libraries: How often do we really aggressively study the habits of our users when it comes to our online resources? Do we have good data to back up the assumptions we make about how patrons use our services? Are we providing use options aimed at different kinds of users with different goals and habits?
Also, the idea of pulling in third party apps to meet users needs is something libraries need to pay attention to. If somebody else does it better, why do we always seem to want to re-invent the wheel?
Third, I was glad the presenter talked about aggressively marketing the services once they were built. And he wasn’t just talking about ads, but an entire marketing strategy for attracting users and encouraging use. This includes complimentary services and features to further engage potential users, and seems integrated with the whole community atmosphere now created by the site.”
Library Revolution:
