I link to the occasional article from Digital Web, when they post something web-design related that I want to point my loyal readers toward. Today, however, I’m linking to Digital Web not because of a web design article, but because of a library-related article. The library angle?
I’ll discuss ways to navigate some of the clutter of older card catalogs (now ‘updated’ to the web); services like interlibrary loan that get you stuff from almost anywhere; some of the specialized database-driven applications you can’t affordably access from the outside world; and a host of other tools and issues you have probably never considered. In the end, you will come out a more agile designer and developer.
It’s basically about how to use your local library’s resources to save some cash and get some great material that just isn’t available anywhere else. It’s geared mostly to academic libraries (the author is a librarian at a university, so that makes sense) and it’s brutally honest about the challenges of navigating most library websites, but it is a great outreach effort to other disciplines to get more people into our libraries.
This is sort of what I’m trying to do by presenting at the NAGW conference this year, as a matter of fact. I deliberately chose a non-library conference to present my Web 3.0 stuff at because I wanted to share what libraries have to offer with non-librarians. No point in preaching to the choir, there… I’ll probably do a revised version of this presentation at library conferences, too, but the tone/direction will be different. It will be more of a “how to make your stuff EASY to use”, not “how to use what your local library has to offer” sort of thing.
