The Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL) has excellent resources for a diverse user population. The homepage has an option to browse the catalog. When clicked several options become available including changing the language to Spanish or Japanese, performing an advanced search, or searching the library periodicals. In addition to the catalog options, the library also provides helpful links on the same page such as Hot Titles, e-Media, eBooks, Online Book Clubs, and Resources to find online full text works.
The Online Book Clubs is an interesting service provided by LAPL. All a patron has to do is sign up with his/her email address and choose the genre of interest. The book club is set up to email a five minute selection from a chapter on a daily basis, and each week a new book is started. This seems like a good way to get patrons interested in a new book but of course, would require the patron to go out and find the full text elsewhere.
The Online Book Clubs is an interesting service provided by LAPL. All a patron has to do is sign up with his/her email address and choose the genre of interest. The book club is set up to email a five minute selection from a chapter on a daily basis, and each week a new book is started. This seems like a good way to get patrons interested in a new book but of course, would require the patron to go out and find the full text elsewhere.
Resources to find online full texts is another option worth mentioning. Here there are useful links to help patrons in their search for materials. The link provides several lists of links that could be very useful to patrons. This includes not only links to online full texts but also links to online criticism, book reviews, poetry, famous quotes, and more.
LAPL also provides separate links for their Kid and Teen patrons. The Kid’s Path seemed very kid friendly with lots of color, pictures, and animations. The Kid’s Path has a section called ebooks for ekids; the link is for the TumbleBook Library. The TumbleBook Library is a great resource for children. It provides audio books, read alongs that highlight the text as it is being read, games related to the stories, and language learning books (which expose children to other languages in written or audio formats). The Kid’s Path also provides its youth with access to Live Homework Help from 1-10pm everyday which can be accessed from LAPLs’ computers or from home with a LAPL library card. There are also a few selected websites to aid students with particular subjects. The final thing worth noting in the Kid’s Path is the Kid’s Catalog. The Kid’s Catalog makes it very easy for children to browse; it provides a system that allows children to click on some of the most typical subjects, authors, series, famous people, or types of books.
Another major option LAPL provides is a section for Adult Literacy Services. This service provides many options and information for adults who are seeking literacy assistance. One of the literacy services that the library provides is a Learn Online option. Two of the three learning services, Plato (A self-paced learning course for subjects from math and reading to writing and social studies) and LearnATest.com (Improve your scores on job skill exams), are provided free to LAPL library card holders.
Finally, it is worth mentioning LAPL’s Ask a Librarian section. There are roughly five options that a patron can use to get help from the library. These include visiting a branch, calling or faxing infoNow, AskNow a 24/7 phone service, emailing an information request, and/or instant messaging.
Some other things I looked at and found interesting was the historic photo collection available for all to browse, the Espanol link, the numerous databases, podcasts, and a pay it online service.
Overall, the Los Angeles Public Library has created a website meant to accommodate a diverse patronage, and in my opinion, they have succeed in a accommodating more groups than most public libraries.
No comments:
Post a Comment