By By ERIKA PICKLES / Niles Daily Star
NILES – The Niles District Library's Web site has a new look, which will make browsing the site more user friendly not only to everyday visitors, but for library staff as well.
"The entire staff contributes to the Web site and not many of us are familiar with how to run a Web site, so that became a problem," library director Nancy Studebaker said.
She added that the old design of the site was still very user friendly, however, when it came down to making updates, it was a frustrating situation.
"We knew we had to do something to make it easier for our staff to use. When we decided to re-do the site, I looked at dozens of other library's sites," Studebaker said.
That's when she came across the site for the Dowagiac District Library and liked what she saw.
Image Maker Design L.L.C. was responsible for the look of the site and Studebaker contacted them about re-doing the Niles Library's site.
"The site still has a lot of the same features as our old site did. But one thing I think people will really enjoy is the library employee's reviews of books. So many times people want to know what we are reading and now we can let them know what we are reading and even what we think of a book," Studebaker explained.
The site includes a clearer organizational structure and more emphasis on helping users find the information they want quickly. For instance, new and upcoming library events will now appear on individual department pages in addition to the master news and calendar search pages.
"A site of this complexity can sometimes be a nightmare to conceptualize and implement in a reasonable timeframe. But Nancy had a clear vision of what she was looking to accomplish with the new site and we all feel the finished project is one of the best of its kind," Alan Fricke, owner of Image Maker Design said.
Features to the new site, which address is still www.nileslibrary.com, include:
Easy to navigate
Fresh content
Access to the library's catalog integrated into the site
Access to the patrons account integrated into the site
Ability to search calendar and news items that are up to one year old
Home page alerts to notify the patron of high priority information
A calendar of the scheduled uses and availability of the community room