The Librain

I would like to start a debate here about Strongest Links. This was set up about 5 or 6 years ago to act as a support website for UK school librarians. There was very little available in this country at that time – the SLA had a very basic site and SLG’s was similar. I saw a niche for a site that would be useful to my colleagues.

My reasons for creating the site were:

• To support my colleagues in the UK
• To develop my web-building skills through a project that I thought would be useful
• To have a place to store my huge number of bookmarks that were constantly being lost on my school network
• To raise my profile in the profession – I am not ashamed of that statement – I am being honest here!
• To have a place to put miscellaneous stuff!

The site is written at home and in my own time using Frontpage. I gave it a re-vamp last year to update the look and incorporate a bit more of a Web2.0 feel.

However…

The world has moved on apace and now the SLA at least has a much better and more informative site and I am sure that SLG will follow. I have now developed a wider range of skills and am working on blogs and wikis and enjoying the ease of creation and editing that these bring – my new school library website is testament to that.

So these are the issues for me:

• The site has not been updated for quite some time, as I have very little time available at home to work on it. As it is written using Frontpage, I can only edit it at home and not add things on the fly as I can do with my school site.
• Is it really being used by anyone? I can see the hits on the site, but I don’t know how useful it is any more.
• Should I spend some time at half term updating it? If so, which sections are useful and which should I get rid of?
• Would I regret it if I closed it down?
• Should I offer it to someone else? If so, who would want it?
• I think that the wiki part was not useful, so I will delete that – does anyone mind?

If people want me to carry on with it, I am happy to do so. I just need some feedback to help me decide. If you want it to continue, please let me know…

Well, it has been quite a while since I last posted. First of all, I had a month’s holiday in the “Summer” – I have not had such a long time off for ten years at least! Then, I have been settling into my new job – this is a continuing process, of course.

So, interesting times for me. I feel that I am back to doing a lot of “traditional” library work again. My present library will be re-furbished next summer, so in the meantime I am sorting out a really dated book-tock. These are the things that I have been doing:

• stock-taking
• weeding
• re-cataloguing
• cleaning
• re-labelling
• making new guiding and signage

When that is finished – which will take months – then I will be able to start buying some new stuff. At the same time as all this, I am trying to get to know the staff and pupils – making those all-important relationships that will stand me in good stead as I develop the library.

So, where does that leave all of the new Web2.0 stuff that I was beginning to develop in my last job? Well, as the resources of the library cannot adequately support the curriculum of the school, I have been working on the Library website – see previous post. The new Library Online is developing nicely and the school are really pleased with it. I am planning to spend more time on it over half term, when I can really get on with thinking about how I want to use it.

Soon, I will do a presentation to the entire school in Assembly and show everyone the site.

Do have a look and let me know what you think:

Library Online