Austin Public Library-Austin, MN

Every time I want to go to the Austin Public Library website and I type my request into google the website for the public library for Austin, Minnesota is one of the first on the list. So I decided to do something useful with the website and evaluate it’s OPAC.
If the website is anything to go by this is a library that has integrated itself very thoroughly into the community. This website contains pages for Live Homework Help for school children, computer classes, e-audiobooks that can be downloaded at home, genealogy sites and databases that allow access to census reports back to 1790, the library will even put together travel kits designed to keep a child busy during long trips. It is very user-oriented.
This is a library that is adapting to the needs of its community. It has recognized that many people would rather do their research online and is providing the means to do it. The main focus of the website is not on the catalogue, but on the other services the library can offer. These services are not limited to those who physically go to the library; all of these can be accessed online as long as the user has a library card. All he/she needs to do is type in their barcode.
Obviously I could not gain access to the databases and explore because I do not have a library card, but each of the databases had a short blurb explaining it’s focus and who might find a particular database useful. For example, “Price It!” can be used by collectors to estimate values of pieces of art, etc. or “Issues and Controversies” may be useful to researching students or current events readers since it provides in-depth information on a multitude of hot topics presently being debated.
One of the things that I do not like about this site is the tab menu down the left side of the page. Some of the labels do not adequately describe the service being offered. For example, one tab is labeled “Programs.” This leads to a page offering to provide travel kits for those with children who are going to be traveling in the near future. Why is this under “Programs” and not under the tab “Services” which is also present on the lefthand menu? Also, when a user clicks on a particular link on the left side, that link disappears from the menu once that page has been downloaded.
In my opinion the OPAC is not nearly as impressive and user friendly as the rest of the website. When a user first clicks on the “Catalog” tab two boxes come up: one of them is the standard drop down menu of “Subject Keyword,” “Author Keyword,” “Title Keyword,” etc. And the other box allows a person to type in the information. From this first page there is no way to further refine the search. Once you begin your search you can sort the results by publication date, author, or title and you can limit the results to a certain type of material (books, large print, DVD, etc.) but there is not even an extra box provided for a more detailed search with multiple variables of subject, author, title, etc.
However this OPAC does have one feature that I really like. It allows the user to email oneself a citation of the search results. At the bottom of the page the user can select which search results to email and the user can even select the style of the citation (MLA, Chicago, etc.).