Posted by James Rogers on August 13, 2014 at 03:51PM
There are some big changes coming to the Denver Public Library Western History/Genealogy Department and Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library websites. First off, the two websites will be combined for easier access and navigation. Second, a unique collaborative relationship between support staff and public service staff helped us to connect ideas and create innovative digital services.
Here are some highlights of those services that you can look forward to…
- Content is created by WHG/BCAARL staff
- The Research section has two main parts that focus on our primary source material and reference services – digital and in-library and how to access them.
- Research Guides – topic based guides will give an overview of our digital and in-library resources for that topic including related resources, multimedia, and search boxes.
- Research Access and Services – how to access the actual materials, planning for your visit, videos about using our special collections in the actual space and contact information.
- The Denver section of the site provides a fun and engaging interactive experience for using our resources.
- Interactive layered historical maps that illustrate the depth of our neighborhood’s histories via our collections.
- Inspiring tutorials designed tell the story of discovering your house history.
- Neighborhood History Guides that integrate valuable research content from the CYC site with the rich content and services of the Library.
- The Genealogy section combines user friendliness and world class resources that will get beginners hooked and will feed those experienced genealogists with additional discoveries.
- The Photos section will have a collection of Galleries that are created by staff and organized by topic and also include other photo research services and resources.
- Staff will use the galleries to add depth and character to exhibits, blog posts, Research Guides, Neighborhood History Guides and Tutorials.
- The About section provides customers with a centralized location for a calendar of events fed from the main site, online exhbits, information on how to use the Library, and Awards.
- BCAARL – a distinctive section of the site for this special user group includes all of DPL’s relevant resources and services giving our customers greater understanding of what we offer as a whole while emphasizing those topics related to BCAARL and highlighting community events at that Branch.
- Improved search-ability of our unique Indexes.
- Newsletter and coordinated social networking.
As you can see, this is a major re-design of the WHG/BCL website. It will be rolled out the beginning of September and we can’t wait for you to see it. We hope it will provide you with improved research capabilities, improved searching, great blogs, and just plain fun browsing!
from Western History and Genealogy Blog
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