San Francisco Public Library

On a whim, I chose to investigate the library website for the San Francisco Public Library system

One thing I noticed right off the bat on the homepage, users have the option of viewing the page in Spanish or Chinese. I found this to be a very helpful and thoughtful way to reach and serve a user base

The library homepage also offers Local Links- Featured San Francisco resources. This seems to be a great way to get the library patrons interested and involved in the local community

The site also includes a News link, which offers information of what’s happening at the library. Areas of interest include topics such as branch renovation and construction information, events, exhibits, and classes.

In using the librar's OPAC, the user can search by basic keyword, title, author, and subject. However, the catalog also offers searches using Publisher, ISBN/ISSN, Call Number, or Government Document Number

The search return doesn’t immediately tell you whether the item is available or not. You have to click on a link that asks “Is it available?” This directs you to a new page with a chart of all the library branches and the item status at each.

Search results displays user ratings. Patrons with a library card can rate items on a 1 to 5 stars basis. Interestingly, The Da Vinci Code received only a 2 star rating.

The search results also offers an icon to represent what form of media the item is. A search for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe returned: Book, DVD/VCD, Spoken CD, VHS Video, and Spoken Tape. By the way, the DVD/VCD item had received a 5 start rating from users. The other formats had yet to be rated.

Each item within the search results offers a thumbnail view of the item’s cover image. When you click on the thumbnail, it allows you to view a larger JPEG image.

Additionally, after selecting an item from the search results, you have the option to switch between Regular Display and MARC Display.

When I searched for the title Everything is Miscellaneous, the results page offered me the option to click on a link titled Other Resources. This directed me to a new window that offered me new links to further title searches. These new options included: Full Text Articles in Proquest, Encyclopedias like Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia, Book Information in WorldCat, and seach engines like Google and Yahoo.

The results page also offered a link called Reviews and Summaries. This directed me to a new page titled Additional Information. Here, they offered additional links: Table of Contents, First Chapter or Excerpt, Summary, Cover Image, Review- Publisher’s Weekly, Review- Library Journal.

The catalog offers a drop down menu of recent search history, which was helpful when I was wanting to switch between various search results, without having to re-enter the information again.

Overall, I found this library website and OPAC to be user-friendly. The website is pleasant and helpful, and appears to be meeting the needs of its patrons. If I lived in San Francisco, I believe I would be pleased with the public library system.