My third blog entry will take a look at the Phoenix Public Library’s online presence and compare it to the Hennepin County Library’s online presence, which I reviewed in my second blog entry, in a few areas. First, the Phoenix library’s website is nicely designed and I prefer its presentation to that of Hennepin County’s site in general aesthetics. However, it is more densely packed and may even be considered slightly cluttered by some.
As far as the content goes, the Phoenix Public Library offers a number of features. It has sections for browsing books, movies, and music, as well as special sections for kids, teens, and 50 plus people. An interesting feature on the movie section of the site is that it incorporates Rotten Tomatoes ratings system, top-rated DVD’s list, and reviews. This can help patrons find good movies that interest them and it is nice that the Phoenix library has incorporated them into the DVD record listings. Unfortunately, the library’s sections for teens and kids, although linking to appropriate age-specific content, are only differentiated from the standard website by a change in the color. Such a limited change in the site design for such audiences may not be enough for the targeted audience, particularly young children, to relate to and access fully. Also, the browse features are strange in that they show the subgenres in alphabetical order even on truncated lists, making users click for “See More” to access topics that are likely more popular than ‘Architecture’ for instance. Overall though, the Hennepin County Library’s website offers better tools for patrons to locate potential materials of interest such as reader-submitted recommendation lists and reviews.
The Phoenix Public Library seems to have two different online catalogues showing their holdings and unfortunately both seem to have some problems. One of them seems to be a standard OPAC that is accessed by clicking on the “Classic Search” link under the search box. The problem I have with this catalogue, other than the limited features it offers, is that the search functionality, at least in the limited time I have spent on it, is terrible. For instance, its results for a keyword search for “Dr. Strangelove” did not return the famous movie whose title starts with that phrase on the first page of results. The preferred catalogue – the one linked to the browse feature and the search box – is better overall because it has more features. These features include a tool to find more books like the one at which you are looking, and a section showing reviews from Amazon for that particular book and professional reviews. This catalogue also has a few issues. Like the other catalogue, this one seems to have some issues with the search functionality. When I tried searching for “Catch-22” the classic book did not come up in the first page of results.
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