Library Quarterly Report FY17 Q2: October-December 2016

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fter months of preparation and testing the library quietly unveiled its first publicly accessible Web site this quarter. This marks a major achievement for the library (and is thanks to Springshare's LibGuides CMS platform), since the library has used an Intranet Web page from 2006-2016. Over the years that site became increasingly difficult for library staff to maintain.

The old site at http://vdotlibrary (now redirecting to the new site!) was not accessible to patrons off the VDOT network, was not compliant with W3C specifications for accessibility, was not "mobile device friendly" and did not utilize responsive design — all features built in to the new Web presence.

The Library's Web site has since been featured by Springshare as an outstanding example of a Special Library Using LibGuides CMS as their Website and the library has received multiple requests from other Springshare libraries to use the template created by Ken Winter, system administrator. 

Soon we'll be focusing on creating Research Guides, which are "mini Web pages" that guide library patrons through the process of using subscription databases, taking advantage of library services, and finding resources in customized subject areas relevant to VDOT. 

To be sure we could manage our workload and fully integrate the new site, the library worked with VDOT IT to migrate the site to the URL library.virginiadot.org and we focused our initial roll out on the LibAnswers FAQ element of the site, and the LibChat live chat tool.