tools
Too quiet for you?
12th August 2014I’ve mentioned before how I primarily work from home nowadays, where it’s very quiet. So, I’m often looking for ways to jazz up my work environment without actually playing music, which [...]
Laura
Design
Carousels: time to go
10th July 2014Carousels have almost become ubiquitous. I am frequently asked about them when I start designing a site for a library. I often. now, make it clear that these don’t represent a good design choice. [...]
Personnel
Public computing : Thoughts from the field
19th June 2014Librarians generally don’t like to say “No” to patrons: no, you can’t do this, no, you can’t have this. But they don’t understand the technical challenges involved as [...]
tools
Tool Tuesday: Flare by Filament
10th June 2014Getting people to share stuff, especially via social media channels, is always a challenge. I’ve tried various WordPress plugins and sharing buttons for my blog, but never been really happy with [...]
Design
3 truths about your library’s website
8th May 2014I create websites for public libraries. I’ve been doing that for more than 15 years. In that time, I’ve learned a few things, especially in my current job, where I work on sites for multiple [...]
social media
Tool Tuesday: Tagboard
22nd April 2014Last fall, I was tasked with trying to pull in all of the social media stuff tagged with a state convention’s hashtag into one, easy-to-digest display. My was first thought was along the lines [...]
usability
Losing your virginity–thinking more about the payoff
17th April 2014Social media and promoting your library’s “stuff” is something I’ve written about before. It’s still a message that I find many libraries ignoring. Too many libraries [...]
tools
Tool Tuesday: TL;DR
1st April 2014Perhaps you’re like me, and you have the attention span of a gnat. Or, maybe you’re just like most people, and you don’t have time to read today’s news, in depth. That’s [...]
social media
Asking the wrong question
18th March 2014“Any suggestions on how to get more followers? I’d like to get more for the [insert social media site here] account I created. Thanks!” I see a fair number of this kind of question on [...]
tools
Tool Tuesday: NameChk
11th March 2014If someone were to ask me “Which tool do you wish you had known about at the beginning of the Internet?” it wouldn’t be that difficult to answer. It would almost certainly be NameChk. [...]
tools
Going “Cold Turkey”
17th January 2014I admit it. Sometimes, the siren call of Facebook or Twitter gets to me, and I head over to social media to see what’s going on. Maybe it happens to you, as well? Or, perhaps instead of social [...]
fun
Because you’re not getting much work done anyway (2013 edition)
19th December 2013It’s that time again! Time for MeanLaura’s annual collection of online things with which you could potentially be ruining your productivity. That is, if you still even have time. After all, Candy [...]
tools
Need a timeline?
12th December 2013Have you ever needed to create a timeline? Or had a student ask you how to create one? Just like most other things nowadays, there’s an app/online tool/thingy for that. One of these is called [...]
Design
Challenges
21st November 2013I was recently asked to talk to a SLIS class for the University of Illinois, concerning what I do and what real-world advice I might care to impart to a class full of potential web librarians and developers. [...]
Personnel
How to hire a library tech: Part 4 (Warning Signs & Final Advice)
31st October 2013As a followup to the Head Meets Desk posts, I asked techs and administrators from around the Web to send me their best advice on hiring IT staff for a library. What follows, here in Part Four, is the [...]
Personnel
How to hire a library tech: Part 3 (The Interview)
17th October 2013As a followup to the Head Meets Desk posts, I asked techs and administrators from around the Web to send me their best advice on hiring IT staff for a library. What follows, here in Part three, is the [...]
Personnel
How to hire a tech: Part Two (Job ads and requirements)
19th September 2013As a followup to the Head Meets Desk posts, I asked techs and administrators from around the Web to send me their best advice on hiring IT staff for a library. What follows, here in Part Two, is the [...]
Personnel
How to hire a library tech (Part One)
12th September 2013As a followup to the Head Meets Desk posts, I asked techs and administrators from around the Web to send me their best advice on hiring IT staff for a library. What follows, here in Part One, is the [...]
usability
Why your website’s UI should not be a special snowflake
13th August 2013So, let me tell you about what happened to me earlier this week. Our family went to Cedar Point. I’m getting really thirsty. Hot day in August and, of course, soft drinks at the amusement park [...]
social media
Is Pinterest actually *right* for your library?
6th June 2013Don’t get me wrong: I love Pinterest. I have spent countless hours curating interesting content, trying Pinterest recipes and crafts and admiring inspirational posters and the creativity of others. [...]
usability
Thinking about web analytics
16th May 2013(Today’s post is almost more of a question than anything else, so please post your thoughts in the comments. I’m genuinely interested.) I’ve got questions. Most libraries have some [...]
social media
Want to be better at Twitter? Get visual.
2nd May 2013The fact that social media has pretty much gone over to images shouldn’t be a surprise; with the rise of Pinterest, Vine, Instagram, animated GIFs and even the Edgerank algorithm that Facebook uses [...]
tools
Can’t work in a coffee shop? This might help
25th April 2013It’s true: I have a yen for weird little apps and web services that are truly niche in purpose and yet are helpful. I’ve mentioned some of my favorites previously, such as Newsle and Sunrise. [...]
tools
Voicemail for your website
25th March 2013Now, they may be out there, but I have yet to run across a library that accepts voice messages via its after-hours answering machine. (I’ve never been clear on whether this was an active choice [...]
tools
All the news that’s fit to email
28th February 2013I love just about anything that will organize my crazy life for me, and I especially love those services that collate and push data, so I don’t have to go chasing after it. A few weeks ago, I wrote [...]
Personnel
Head Meets Desk (Part Two)
14th February 2013(You can see Part One here.) Last time on MeanLaura, I shared stories from library IT staff about moments they had with non-tech staff that were frustrating. This week, I’m sharing more stories, [...]
Personnel
Head Meets Desk (Part One)
29th January 2013A little while ago, I put out a call to the public library IT community to share their best (worst?) “Head meets desk” moments. You know, those times when they drove out to a branch, only [...]
tools
Sunrise: a handy little tool
10th January 2013While there’s lots of ground-breaking technology happening right now, sometimes it’s the little things that catch my attention. I sign up for all sorts of new web things. If it’s in [...]
fun
Because you’re not getting much work done anyway (2012 edition)
17th December 2012It’s that time again! Time for MeanLaura’s annual collection of fun things on which you could be wasting your workday. Surely, you’ve given up solitaire by now, and there’s only so much [...]
usability
Why your website layout matters
29th November 2012From a usability perspective, layout has always been important. If the tasks people come to do the most often are hidden, people leave your site, frustrated. Recently, with the advent of mobile devices [...]
social media
Subjects go social: Welcome to Sulia
19th November 2012Yes, Sulia is yet another social network. However, unlike many of its brethren, Sulia makes no attempt to promote itself as the “next Facebook” or a “Twitter-killer.” Which [...]
usability
“There are no facts inside the building.”
6th November 2012This is one of the rare occasions where I would like to simply take all of the text from someone else’s blog post and simply plunk it here. Since I can’t really do that, I do want to share [...]
![What would YOU tell them? [Need help]](https://i0.wp.com/www.meanlaura.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/tech_tells_slider.jpg?fit=500%2C208&ssl=1)
Personnel
What would YOU tell them? [Need help]
18th October 2012I need some help from all of you, this time round. If you are an IT professional in a library, or a staff member who has to deal with technology all day, you have probably had a moment or two when you’ve [...]
social media
Is Facebook still free?
4th October 2012The answer to that question is, in short: Sorta. Kinda. Maybe. This week, Facebook announced a new feature for Facebook Profiles (individual users–people–not Facebook Pages for brands/organizations). [...]
writing
Exclamation points. Don’t use them.
20th September 2012“Exclamation points, you see, are evil. “ James Chartrand, Men With Pens I’m fairly certain that I’ve talked about this in nearly every web-related workshop or presentation I’ve ever done; [...]
marketing
Thinking a bit about online advertising
6th September 2012Advertising your library online is tempting. The expertise required to set it up is minimal, and the allure can quickly overwhelm you when you realize that most of it is PPC (pay per click), meaning [...]
Keeping Up
Have you given much thought to browsers?
11th July 2012Lately, it seems that all I, as a web developer, hear, is about mobile web usage. There’s been a lot of posts on the Web about the forthcoming mobile apocalypse (Mobipocalypse?), where people will [...]
social media
5 reasons why your library shouldn’t be cross-posting
28th June 2012I know, it’s convenient to use the exact same, exact content for your library’s Twitter and Facebook accounts. And, yes, I know social media takes a lot of time! But, if it’s worth [...]
Design
Some lines about logos
24th May 2012In my job, I work with a lot of library logos. Especially because, when possible , I design around the logo. I don’t like to just create a template and stick a logo in it. I like the rest of [...]
email
Your email signature: good or not? Take the quiz
10th May 2012Recently, a friend complained to me that the email signature of one of her coworkers was ridiculous. It included a quote, a plug for one of the library’s services, a graphic and several other unnecessary [...]
Keeping Up
Want a better presence online? Get over yourself
24th April 2012I was recently asked to come up with a session for new library directors, about how to improve their libraries’ online presences. Not just websites, but their social media work as well. At first, [...]
tools
Getting web images down to size
5th April 2012Generally speaking, most library staff I work with understand that, when you take an image off a digital camera, it’s huge. It’s easy to see that it’s huge; often, the photo may take [...]
Design
Is it theft? Yeah, it is.
15th March 2012Recently, I had the unpleasant experience of discovering that one of my custom graphics was appearing, without permission, on a library’s website. It appeared that the library had simply copied [...]
social media
Here comes the Timeline (don’t run screaming)
8th March 2012Love it or hate it, yet another major Facebook shift is upon us–the advent of the Facebook Timeline format for Pages (it’s already been involved with our personal profiles for some time, as [...]
writing
Beware of “smelly” content
1st March 2012Many libraries give a lot of thought to how their website looks, and some even spend a significant time thinking about how people actually use their sites. However, one aspect that often gets overlooked [...]
social media
Pin your hopes on Pinterest?
12th January 2012Every so often, a new social media site starts to make the rounds on the hype circuit. The latest of these is a new service called Pinterest. Pinterest is still in beta, and is currently invite-only. [...]
fun
Because you’re not getting much work done anyway (2011 edition)
20th December 2011It’s that time again–time for MeanLaura’s annual roundup of sites you can be wasting your time on, instead of actually working. After all, the novelty of Angry Birds and Cityville does [...]
social media
Google + isn’t ready for prime time yet
21st November 2011Google Plus has been around for at least five months or so, and has taken off faster than any other social network ever has. Meanwhile, companies and organizations have been waiting anxiously for the [...]
writing
Writing so people give a darn
16th September 2011This week, the OPLIN 4Cast took a look at how social media does or does not affect attention. I thought I’d supplement that with something else that tends to lose people’s attention on the [...]
usability
Is this the right word?
11th July 2011Yesterday was a Sunday, which usually means that I can be found sitting at my computer, working on my second book, while the rest of the world enjoys…well, everything else. Suffice it to say, spending [...]
social media
Stop checking in
30th June 2011I want to admit this, right up front. This is more of a rant than my usual, more considered posts. I want you to stop checking into your own library on Foursquare. Or Gowalla. Or Facebook Places or [...]
writing
Where’s the payoff?
3rd June 2011I’ve been doing a lot of teaching about social media lately, and one of the points I drive home constantly is that human beings are inherently selfish. When presented with anything new, the question [...]
Design
Website work starts with education
29th April 2011“Though art may be subjective, Web design is not. In Web design, there is a right way and a wrong way to approach layout, navigation, copy, white space, and other critical website components.”—Andrew [...]
fun
Grown-up Easter eggs
19th April 2011This weekend, millions of children will be searching their yards in search of eggs and goodies allegedly left by the Easter Bunny. Chances are good that, if you’re a parent, you’ve already [...]
tools
Social search & grokking Greplin
3rd March 2011Many times, only half-jokingly, I have told people that I have the memory of a sieve. That is to say, none at all. I suspect that, in this age of the information barrage, I’m not alone. How [...]
Keeping Up
Up to speed? The perils of using online speed testing
17th February 2011If you’re a library network admin, you are probably familiar with complaints concerning slow download speeds on your local network. “The Internet is crawling today! What’s wrong?” [...]
email
Phishing: it happens, even in libraries
1st February 2011When the folks I work with at OPLIN suggested this topic, my first reaction was “Isn’t that too basic for MeanLaura to be covering?” All of my colleagues assured me, sadly, that it [...]
social media
Time to queue up for Quora?
13th January 2011Quora is somewhat new (heck, it barely left beta 6 months ago), but already has gained major traction. Wikipedia describes Quora as an “online knowledge market. ” If you’re familiar [...]
fun
Because you’re not getting much work done anyway (2010 edition)
15th December 2010The holiday season is upon us. Yes, you’re still working, but I’m betting that your brain is still curled up in bed (visions of sugar plums optional). The weather outside is frightful and [...]