Weaving a Library web: A Guide to Developing Children's web sites

Citation

Ranti Junus, S.G. (2005), "Weaving a Library web: A Guide to Developing Children's web sites", Library Hi Tech, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 137-138. https://doi.org/10.1108/07378830510586775

Blowers and Bryan based this book on their experiences in developing library web sites for children: BookHive, StoryPlace, BraryDog, and Hands on Crafts. Even though this book focuses on developing children's web sites, the methods described are also useful for building any user‐centered web site.

The book contains information from several perspectives: web site design principles, project management, and promotion and marketing. The project management and promotion angles are rarely discussed in books about creating and designing a web site. These chapters are valuable not only for web developers but also for public services and public relation staff.

This book also includes project guidelines, which are easy to follow and useful, especially for those new to web development. A large section of the book is dedicated to preparation and design, which are the important part of any web site project. The book provides examples such as web page screen shots, project and design samples, and a request for proposal (RFP) for libraries that need to outsource their web design projects.

The first three chapters deal with web site design principles: content creation, user interface/user interaction, and special considerations such as privacy, accessibility, and web site maintenance. These concerns are crucial when creating web pages. The Children Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which was created primarily for commercial web sites is discussed. Privacy consideration becomes especially important for web sites that encourage user interaction through polls, book reviews, registration, personalization, etc.

The accessibility guidelines included in this book address web design especially for users with visual impairments. Here are sections dedicated on ways to make web site content available for users with such. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WAG) from the world wide web consortium's (W3C) web accessibility initiative (WAI) as well as the Section 508 guidelines of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998 are explained.

Plans for web site maintenance, such as updating the site or fixing bugs, also play an important role in developing a web site. The book discusses the process for developing a maintenance plan and workflow. An example of creating and utilizing a special interface for web site maintenance is given, which is useful for a web site with complex design and a lot of content.

The next three chapters talk about project management for web site design: team building, planning and organization, and testing and evaluation. Issues such as team management and outsourcing are discussed, as well as project planning and workflow design. Testing and evaluation – crucial steps before launching a web site – are described, including code and link verification, performance and browser compatibility, accessibility testing guidelines, and usability testing procedures.

The last chapter deals with promoting the web site. The authors give useful information on how to make the web site visible to search engines, either by creating tags or registering the site to selective search engine companies. Other useful marketing efforts – such as promotion to library users by newsletter or giveaways, and participating in school or community events – are also discussed.

While the information is clear enough, the methods described for creating some web features (searches, animation, or forms) might be a bit daunting for a one‐person web developer and/or programmer. Moreover, the book assumes we have already solved technical infrastructure problem such as web servers, network connections and bandwidth. Not all public libraries have the luxury of creating and maintaining a wonderful web site for users on their own server. A section with information on what to consider when deciding where to host the library web site would be useful.

A good web site needs careful preparation and design, as demonstrated by the web sites listed in the book. Overall, this book is good not only for web site project managers, but also for webmasters and content providers. However, if you want technical details on how to build the features they have developed (e.g. forms or maintenance/back‐end interface), you will need to get other books that deal specifically with such technical aspects of designing a web site.