“While we loved the past design, and it served us well for a long time, we had come to a point, as we expanded services, changed things, and worked with understanding our communities’ needs, where we just wanted to update it in order to make everything on it more easily accessible, so that was the driving force,” she said.
The URL is www.lanepl.org.
“What we really wanted to make sure we did a good job with this time was bringing all of our amenities and services to the forefront. Everything was on our previous website, but the navigation was such that you would have to know what to click on at the very beginning to get down to the granular level of where those services were. So, we knew with this website that we wanted to elevate those to the front page,” said Mancuso.
On the homepage, at the top, underneath The Lane Libraries new logo, there is a menu bar with “Borrowing,” “Events,” “Digital Library,” “Services,” and “About” — That is the main navigation on the updated website. When patrons scroll over those, they’ll see drop-down menus, and that’s where they can dig into the sections themselves and all of the things that are under each section.
The Lame Libraries identified the things most popularly used and is featuring them so people can very quickly find those icons, which are below the big scrolling banners.
“The scrolling banners are dynamic, and always changing, and users can click through to the area that the banners are highlighting,” Mancuso said.
Under the large scrolling banners, there are prominent icons, which are the library’s most popular places to go. Those icons include “Download and Stream,” “Get a Card,” “How Do I?” “Local History,” “Makerspace,” “Research Tools,” “Reserve a Space” and “SearchOhio.”
“We know that a lot of people are using our electronic resources these days, so ‘Download and Stream’ is a big one. That’s where you go to get to all of our electronic resources,” Mancuso said. “For those coming here for the first time, we want to make sure they easily see how to get a library card, so that is up there.”
“How Do I?” is a collection point for all of the questions the library receives. They answer some frequent questions, and users can click and easily find the answers, for example.
Mancuso said “Local History” is a gem of The Lane Libraries System. In the past, “Local History” didn’t have a lot of visibility on the previous website, so the library wanted to raise its visibility, because a lot of times, people are looking for local history.
The same is true of “Makerspace.” Makerspace is the library’s tech center in downtown Hamilton, and it’s still a “best kept secret,” but the library wants everybody to know about it. Patrons can click on “Makerspace” and get an idea of all the things that are offered there.
“If patrons are interested in the library’s digital resources, this gives them the ability to go right on the homepage and find the one they are looking for, or easily get to the entire list by clicking ‘View More.’ The large ‘Digital Library icons make it really easy to find what they are looking for,” Mancuso said.
As library patrons scroll down, the library has basically taken the same information and split it into age groups by “Kids,” “Teens” and “Adults.” Here, patrons can search by age group.
Patrons might also check out the “Wowbrary” — an email list patrons can sign up for that is sent out every Saturday morning sharing all the items ordered and what is coming soon to the library, including nationally popular titles.
“People love ‘Wowbrary,’ and it keeps you in the loop, so when you get that email of what’s coming, you can click on the titles in your email to reserve those titles,” Mancuso said.
Locations
Hamilton Lane Library
Address: 300 North 3rd St., Hamilton
Phone: (513) 894-7156
Hours: 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 1-5 p.m. Sunday
Fairfield Lane Library
Address: 1485 Corydale Drive, Fairfield
Phone:(513) 858-3238
Hours: 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 1-5 p.m. Sunday
Oxford Lane Library
Address :441 S. Locust St., Oxford
Phone: (513) 523-7531
Hours: 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 1-5 p.m. Sunday
Other info
The Lane Libraries also offers bookmobile services, history rooms and there is a community technology center on Third Street in Hamilton. Get more information on what is offered at www.lanepl.org.
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