Client: All types of libraries

Background

Libraries are starting to focus on the quality and content of their virtual presence. Libraries, regardless of type, realize that many of their users will never step foot in their building. Our users are used to ordering and access all kinds of services and they are coming to expect the same thing of their libraries.

The virtual presence of a library should be robust and accurately reflect the range of services and expertise a library offers, but building the space is not the final step. Once a library has created a robust virtual space, their users must be able to find that space in their daily interactions online.

Questions Created

How does the user who would never think of the library first find the library online? How can a user starting at Google end up with a library or, even better, their local library in the first few search results? *new* What are some of the drawbacks, if any, of libraries being integrated into the web?

Opportunity:

Integrating library service into the major search engines through the following means:

• an open OPAC that allows outside searching (may include a federated search feature)
• metadata that makes it easier to locate particular pages within the library's web page
• creating web 2.0 content (wikis, blogs, podcasts, etc.) that can be linked to and tagged by others and searched by engines
• allowing users to participate in the read/write web through content they find on the library's website, this will in turn...
• create outside linkage that will eventually increase the ranking of the library web site
• allow library holdings into Google Scholar and other similar programs

Product/service

A set of guidelines/instructions for libraries big or small requiring little or no tech training to increase their virtual presence in ways that will allow their users to find them through major search engines.

Goals

1. To help libraries create online spaces that users can find through unconventional meansus
2. To get library resources ranked high in Google, Yahoo, and other major search engines