New NYPL.org
In the near future we will launch the New NYPL.org. Our goal is to freshen the look, provide clear organization of the content, bring easy searching to the homepage and to do all this with a unified look and feel. Our New NYPL.org will introduce features such as the library-wide calendar, a features box with in-depth news and stories about NYPL and more direct access to our catalogs. The image frame at the upper left will feature content that is accessible online. Books and materials will be in the middle section and services such as “Ask a librarian” will be on the right.
In order to better serve our patrons we are working very hard to improve legibility and navigation of the site. For the next two weeks the new design will be available internally for comment and suggestions.
Ummm–could you please provide the internal URL of the new site, so that we can take a look?
Thanks!
We should have a link to a live version up by the end of the week, and get the word out to staff more broadly then…
I suppose the major positive of the new website is that it lets users know when story time may be at their local library. Perhaps the site should also let people know when they have to pick up their children from karate class. I kid. There does seem to be more of an emphasis on SIBL’s Small Biz multimedia, which is good because those will be historical in only a few months time. However, is there much functional difference between the old site and this “new” version? If there is, someone please tell me.
Now, if subjective opinion is of concern, the font on the exhibitions page is painfully small and the tragically crowed. The colors denoting Bronx, Manhattan, Staten Island on the calendar are truly off-putting. What is that flesh tone for Staten Island? Did this test well guys? Language is repeated in all sorts of strange ways on the same page. For instance the Digital Library page has links to both “New & Newsworthy,” “News & Projects” and yet another decreeing “More NYPL Digital News” Let’s say I am a user; I am thinking what is the difference?
It is interesting that the menu appearing on the left hand side of the screen after a user clicks ‘E-News’ from the main site is only found under this E-News heading. Is this good design? NYPL Express is under this menu. NYPL Express is considered ‘E-News’? Luckily, NYPL Express is also found under ‘Books & Materials,’ well I suppose they have materials. That the library would choose “E-News,” a term not to be found even in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, is telling of the direction of this new site and the library’s new singular personality.
I am sure I have lost readers by this point, what with all those podcasts and federated searches available to them. However, I would like to voice some concern about the employment of Arial font on the new site, and not the traditional Garamond or Library font which has forever been the font of the New York Public Library. I would love to hear the rational behind the departure from the Galliard and Library font faces? Were these fonts considered to elitist?
Does it even need to be mentioned that the hodge-podge assemblage of fonts on the top menu and the side bar menu left over from that old site look anything but professional? For instance, the difference in font between ‘Books & Material’ link on the top menu and the font of ‘Your First Stop’ on the left side bar. Where in your design manuals does clashing font faces appear as desirable?
A side note for those techies out there. Flash is required to view the event animation, but in the post-ITG lock down world, librarians cannot install Flash on their Firefox browsers so the animation does not appear. I see that there has been some high minded posts about users and which browser they prefer. Perhaps ITG could have enough sense to install Flash on Firefox browsers, that is, if they could stop dreaming about their X Box 360 games for a moment.
I would love write more about this website, it is really a mystery. Likewise, I would love to read some defenses of the new site’s design. If this is top of line digital know-how, then obviously my comments are for good-for-nought.