I have yet to visit Surrey’s new City Centre Library, formerly Whalley PL, a branch of Surrey Libraries that re-opened last September, but I will very soon. From what I’ve seen in photos, the new building most definitely falls into the category of contemporary monuments, and looks appropriately glamorous. I’m looking forward to seeing what architect Bing Thom, who also designed Aberdeen Centre in Richmond, among other local landmarks, has done with lighting this new space.
Surrey Libraries has a well-designed website that is clearly oriented to a public community, with a leaning towards families and children. It manages to display a remarkable amount of images and information while still appearing relatively uncluttered, although some of the font is pretty tiny and may not be user-friendly for everyone. The design of Surrey Libraries’ website is consistent with that of the City of Surrey, which underscores the libraries’ connection as a service under the umbrella of the city. This is not a bad thing at all, but it means that Surrey Libraries has less control over website design, and is branded with the municipality in which it operates.
I think one of the best things about this site is one of its simplest features: the prominent use of Google translate at the top-center of the page, a nod to the diversity of the city. A drop-down menu offers translations in an impressive number of languages, from Afrikaans down to Yiddish. Importantly, Google translates all the pages, not just a very general section of the website (VPL, take note). The two blogs associated with Surrey Libraries, the general Book Blog and City Centre branch’s blog, do not jump out from the front page, but are hidden in places that would be difficult to stumble upon if you are not already looking for them. This narrows down serendipitous traffic to the blogs. The book blog appears in the drop-down menu under “Reading,” as well as under “About Us.” The City Centre blog appears under “About Us.” Both blogs are linkable from the bottom of the page, under “Find Surrey On,” a listing of social media that Surrey Libraries uses, including YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Placing their social media directly on the front page, rather than hiding them within menus or at the bottom of the site, could increase web traffic to Surrey Libraries’ other media.
Surrey Libraries’ Book Blog, is, like Seattle Public Library’s Shelf Talk, basic in both design and content. In contrast to Shelf Talk, the readers’ advisory entries focus on one book at a time, rather than being presented by theme with many books per theme. For people who prefer their web pages simple and tidy, this could be a good thing. The selected books represent a mix of topics, genres and reading levels, from cookbooks to classics, non-fiction to graphic novels. This general interest format, while great for variety, can be at the same time limiting because of the need to appeal to everyone and strike a balance. Offering more specialized subject-related blogs alongside a general blog can allow for more freedom, although a library of course has to have the human and financial resources to maintain several blogs. One feature I like about this blog is the “Get this book now!” link in blue, which takes you to the item’s record in the public library catalogue. This is a great way to promote the use of the catalogue while making it easy for the visitor to find books.
City Centre branch has its own blog that is not simply a readers’ advisory blog, but a general blog about events and branch-related news. In theory this is a good idea for community-building among visitors to a particular branch library. City Centre’s blog looks different from both the Book Blog and Surrey Libraries website, and the design is somewhat indifferent, meaning that it is neither remarkably appealing nor remarkably off-putting. The major problem with this blog is that it needs to be updated more regularly. There are only 10 entries between September 2011 and April 2012, with the last entry posted on March 12th, about a month ago. For a public library blog, that level of static is pretty remarkable – and not in a good way.
The blog entries also need to go beyond news about the new building, fantastic as the building is. Despite the occasional entry about other topics, the majority of blog entries are basically all about the building. This can probably be related back to the problem of infrequent updates, and again, is not a good thing. I would be surprised if this blog is visited much by City Centre users and the general public, because it does not offer current news about events, programs and services. The Surrey Libraries website is much more effective than the City Centre blog, and more up-to-date. Another major oversight is that clicking on the Surrey Libraries icon on the blog does not bring the visitor back to the Surrey Libraries website, nor does it open the site in a different window. This is baffling because providing a pathway back to the home library page is a basic requirement of any satellite blog, I think, and not hard to do either. I am guessing that staff have their hands full with a huge new building and a large population to serve, so I suggest either dismantling the blog until it can be properly maintained and re-designed, or hiring some keen SLAIS student to perform emergency resuscitation.
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