Broadening the Public Beta
For the past several weeks, the beta website has been in the hands of a limited group of our customers. You can see their comments and feedback through the Web Team blog. And a big thank you to all staff who have continued to provide valuable feedback.
If you haven’t visited the beta site in a while, please do. You will notice many new additions and changes including:
- more integration with the web catalogue for login and place hold functions
- a revised Your Account section that looks more like the rest of the new site
- enhanced layout to the branch page
Starting today, we will launch the public beta more broadly. In order to monitor performance we have put a link to it on one iBistro server. This means about 25% of catalogue visitors will see it. Over the next few days we'll be adding it gradually to the other servers. If things go well, by the week's end you will see a link from our main homepage.
In addition we will promote the beta through our Facebook page and Twitter feed. Please help us spread the word by informing your customers.
During this phase, the Web Team blog will continue to serve as TPL’s official communications and feedback channel for the public. Please direct customers to this blog to find key information, updates and to post their feedback.
Please direct any media inquiries regarding the beta website to Michelle Chau, Marketing & Communication at mchau@torontopubliclibrary.ca or (416) 397-5936.
Please take a few minutes to read the Website FAQ for important information about the website project.
During March, website training will be offered to all staff members who want to get a comprehensive overview of the website and how to use it to better serve our customers.
As always, thank you for your continued support during this new chapter for TPL’s virtual services. We welcome your continued feedback via this blog or by email webteam@torontopubliclibrary.ca.
15 thoughts on “Broadening the Public Beta”
Congratulations everyone! Looks absolutely terrific in so many ways.
My one comment right now is that I can’t “Find My Way back Home” once I start paging through the site.
Can you add a HOME link on each page?
I’ve been comparing Your Account in the new site and in iBistro.
The cursor should be sitting in the Library Card # box when I get to the login screen. I shouldn’t need to click in th ebox before I start typing.
Account Summary tab
The user status is missing. I’m blocked and it says so in iBistro. This is missing in the new site.
On the other tabs it is much less obvious that the columns can be sorted. In iBistro the column headers are underlined which somehow makes one think something can be done with them. When I hover I get the pointing hand. This doesn’t happen in the new site.I just get the cursor like when you hover over text.
What is the timeout on the new site? The entire time I’ve been typing this it has not timed out. iBistro has logged me out twice. Isn’t this a security issue? Ah, it has finally just logged me out.
Thanks. M 🙂
http://beta.torontopubliclibrary.ca/books-video-music/books/booklists/index.jsp
The links to Reading Man and Great Reads are not working.
M 🙁
http://beta.torontopubliclibrary.ca/books-video-music/books/newest-titles.jsp
The links to the four English nonfiction booklists don’t work.
M 🙁
http://beta.torontopubliclibrary.ca/books-video-music/books/newest-titles.jsp
And the children’s Picture Book link isn’t working.
M 🙁
http://beta.torontopubliclibrary.ca/books-video-music/articles-online-research/databases.jsp
404 Error
M 🙁
Hi, I work at Toronto Reference and do user reference for high school students. There is a major concern that I have about subject search on the Advanced Search option. I show students that if you type in a subject–eg. Germany–History–the list of subject headings comes up and gets broken down into all the subcategories like Germany–History–Encyclopedias, Germany–History–1933-1945. This option is NOT present on the BETA model. Absence of this option would make catalogue searching extremely difficult in a large library or research and reference library. This option is present on the old catalogue. I hope that this will be incorporated in the BETA. Tony Rocchi
Hi Tony,
Browsing by subject authorities has not been incorporated into the new website at this stage. Staff or users who want this functionality will continue to have access to the iBistro catalogue. On the new website, there are links to the old catalogue beside the search box on the homepage and on the Advanced Search page.
Hi Marcia,
Thanks for this detailed feedback. We’ll take a look at these issues.
Hi Magdalena,
We looked at a bunch of major websites and found that many use their logo as the primary means to return to the homepage and do not include a persistent “home” link or button. Some examples:
Amazon.com
Amazon.ca
Barnes & Noble.com
The Globe & Mail.com
Home Depot.ca
BBC.co.uk
ESPN.com
Best Buy.com
Future Shop.ca
Canadian Tire.ca
TD Canada Trust.com
Scotiabank.com
Britannica.com (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
TVOkids.com
CBC Kids.ca
Discovery Channel.ca
Twitter.com
Digg.com
iTunes.com
IMDB.com
We decided to follow these examples in the hope that everyone will figure out pretty quickly that clicking the TPL logo returns you to the homepage. It will be interesting to see if we receive any other feedback about this during the public beta.
Sandra
Hi,
I am really enjoying the new look and usability of the site.
I am wondering about the ‘Blogs’ section on the main home-page.
Currently it seems to display the last 3 blog entries. However, when clicking on any of these blog entries, I find things get very confusing and the pages are quite text heavy. It is difficult to see that there are different blogs, one for health/nutrition, a new to Canada one etc.
I know it is still a work in progress, but I am wondering if there will be a main page where once can see all the different library blogs, sorted by category or topic etc… And maybe show on the main page which category each blog posting is from.
I thought I would find this page using the footer link for “New, Blogs & Publications” but I guess that page is currently just for the Twitter feeds.
Thank you!
Good points Valentin. Each blog is kind of stand alone. We do have the blog name available so we can probably use that to be clearer in our display on the home page.
You are correct we haven’t worked on the blog page yet – your suggestions are helpful.
Thanks,
Dara
I read the negative comments about the scrolling banner on the public blog and also the query about finding “new books”.
I think that people aren’t seeing all of the homepage content since the banner is so distracting. They scroll past the Find Your Ways so quickly that they miss the Find Your Way to “your next great read” as well as the book carousels with new books!
Still dislike the scrolling banner. I have a sight problem and this causes me to feel ill. In the time it takes me to stop the scroll, I developed a headache and the need to close my eyes and lie down. This to me is a major flaw.
Type is still way to small and grey.
New books cannot be searched in order by author. I know my authors and want to know what they’ve just written. Books in title order are confusing.
Lastly. I still want far fewer buttons and a less crowded page.
I think it is terrific that the new site searches so broadly – retrieves books and other library material, VRL links (external websites) and the TPL website itself. However I am concerned with the label “Library Info” in the Type limiter in the faceted search results.
Library Info includes TPL webpages, TPL blogs and branches. I suggest that these be listed separately perhaps as:
library blogs
library branches
library info
Or even breaking out just Library branches and amalgamating the other two types:
Library branches
Library info & blogs
Sample searches to see results:
Toronto
career
bloor
I would love to hear other people’s take on this!