I’ve talked about all of these before, either in various presentations or blog posts. If you’re looking for a quick tune-up for your library’s website, you might try starting with these: [...]
I’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 [...]
Carousels 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. [...]
Librarians 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 [...]
Getting 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 [...]
I 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 [...]
Last 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 [...]
Social 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 [...]
Perhaps 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 [...]
“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 [...]
If 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. [...]
I 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 [...]
It’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 [...]
Have 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 [...]
I 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. [...]
As 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 [...]
As 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 [...]
As 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 [...]
As 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 [...]
So, 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 [...]
Don’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. [...]
(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 [...]
The 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 [...]
It’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. [...]
Now, 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 [...]
I 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 [...]
(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, [...]
A 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 [...]
While 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 [...]
It’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 [...]
From 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 [...]
Yes, 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 [...]
This 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 [...]
I 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 [...]
The 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). [...]
“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; [...]
Advertising 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 [...]
Lately, 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 [...]
I 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 [...]
In 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 [...]
Recently, 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 [...]
I 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, [...]
Generally 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 [...]
Recently, 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 [...]
Love 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 [...]
Many 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 [...]
Every 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. [...]
It’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 [...]
Google 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 [...]
This 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 [...]
Yesterday 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 [...]
I 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 [...]
I’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 [...]
“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 [...]
This 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 [...]
Many 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 [...]
If 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?” [...]
When 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 [...]
Quora 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 [...]
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