David Lee King - Running the Digital Branch: Guidelines for Operating the Library Website

Library Technology Reports

Expert Guides to Library Systems and Services

Running the Digital Branch: Guidelines for Operating the Library Website

David Lee King

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American Library Association

Library Technology Reports

ALA TechSource purchases fund advocacy, awareness, and accreditation programs for library professionals worldwide.

Volume 48, Number 6

Running the Digital Branch:
Guidelines for Operating the Library Website

ISBNs: (print) 978-0-8389-5861-2; (PDF) 978-0-8389-9437-5;

(ePub) 978-0-8389-9438-2; (Kindle) 978-0-8389-9440-5.

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Copyright 2012 David Lee King

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About the Author

David Lee King is the digital services director at Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library, where he plans, implements, and experiments with emerging technology trends. He speaks internationally about emerging trends, website management, digital experience, and social media, and has been published in many library-related journals. David was named a Library Journal Mover & Shaker for 2008, and has published a book, Designing the Digital Experience. His second book, Face2Face, will be published in September 2012. David writes the Outside/In column in American Libraries magazine with Michael Porter, and maintains a blog at www.davidleeking.com.

Abstract

Library Technology Reports (vol. 48, no. 6) Running the Digital Branch: Guidelines for Operating the Library Website by David Lee King describes how Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library has operated its website as a digital branch for over four years. The website was redesigned in 2011, which provided a great opportunity to make improvements. This issue discusses the changes and tweaks that were made to the digital branch, especially during the redesign process. This issue also discusses how customers are using blog content and the role of library teams, meetings, and goals in running the digital branch. Statistics and analytics are examined and reasons for using analytics are provided. The issue also discusses social media best practices for a digital branch. Finally, an outlook on the future of the Web is provided and emerging Web design trends are described.

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Contents

Introduction

Abstract

Chapter 1 of Library Technology Reports (vol. 48, no. 6) Running the Digital Branch: Guidelines for Operating the Library Website by David Lee King provides an explanation of the contents of this Library Technology Report, which include changes made to the librarys website, customer engagement, daily operations of the digital branch, statistics, social media, and whats next for websites.

I n August 2009, I published my first issue of Library Technology Reports (LTR): Building the Digital Branch: Guidelines for Transforming Your Library Website. In that LTR, I talked about the idea of a digital branch for a library:

The digital branch [is] a library website that is a vital, functional resource for patrons and enhances the librarys place within its community. The report outlines an efficient process for creating a digital branch, from the initial phases of gathering information and sketching out a design, to winning approval from management, hiring qualified IT staff, and maintaining and upgrading the site once it is built. Throughout the report, the author regularly uses his experience at his own library as an example of how the process can unfold and what pitfalls to avoid.

Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library (TSCPL) has run our digital branch for over four years now and even redesigned the digital branch in 2011. Our redesign made our digital branch more useful, and we were able to fix some glaring problems.

This LTR should be considered a companion piece to the first one. The first report discussed how TSCPL built our digital branch. This report explains what to do after your librarys digital branch is up and running.

Opening day is the exciting virtual ribbon cutting, but it takes a lot of planning and hard work to get to that point. Now that youve finally made it past your initial launch, what do you do next? Youll most likely have questions like these: How do you staff a digital branch? What types of activities can customers undertake while visiting the digital branch? What work-related activities will staff need to perform? How do you fix problems and make improvements?

This LTR answers those questions. I will focus on these areas:

tweaks weve made to the digital branch

use and engagement on the digital branch

how we operate the digital branch

statistics

social media

whats next

focuses on what worked and what didnt in our first digital branch iteration and on the tweaks we have made to the digital branch since going live.

There were some things that we built into the digital branch that simply didnt work. If you have ever built a website, you have probably discovered that some really cool ideas that you built into the sitethat you thought your librarys customers would think were awesomesimply didnt work according to plan.

On the other hand, maybe there was something important that you or your web team forgot to create. That important tidbit was lost among the details. Ill discuss what those missteps were for my librarys digital branch and explain how we fixed them.

Once a digital branch is running well, the next question is, is it being used? We wanted to know if our customers were reading and subscribing to our blog posts. answers those questions.

Now that we have operated our digital branch for four years, we know what works and what doesnt for our library, and we have created some goals and a strategy for reaching those goals, both for the website and for social media. In , I will describe our goals for the digital branch and how we meet those goals.

Ill also discuss the various teams that work on our digital branch, what types of meetings we have, whos in charge of what, and how those groups interact with the rest of the library.