Resources
Navigation in WJIL 2.0 or Where’s Waldo?
- As you all know, exciting and new features are coming later this summer for WebJunction Illinois. A new site is the result of a host of decisions both large and small. One of the more important decisions has to do with defining the top-level information buckets on the site. In the case of WJIL 2.0, with so much new and exciting functionality, there are both functional and conceptual implications to these top-level nav decisions. Find out more by clicking on the link above to give you insight into the possibilities for the new site.
- WJIL 2.0 offers increased opportunity for registered users to contribute and share content on the site. Find out how easy it is.
Portlets – Not What You Might Think They Are!
- For those of you who are Star Trek fans, you might be envisioning something way more cool than what these portlets can do…but they’re still useful in WJIL 2.0. Find out why by clicking on the link.
Courses and Learning
Change is coming to the WJIL Course Catalog
- Change is also in the works for the WJIL Course Catalog – offered to registered users for free thanks to the Illinois State Library. You’ll be seeing a host of new and updated self-paced courses offered by SkillSoft as well as an increased number of library specific courses – including some of your favorite LibraryU courses. Keep an eye on the “What’s New” in the upcoming weeks for more specifics about Course offerings.
Community
Amazing Stories from the Amazing Illinois Library Community
Can you guess what these quotes are referring to?
“This was wonderful! Well worth the two busses, train, and cabs it took me to get here from Wrigleyville in Chicago.”
“By bringing different historical impersonators who did fun and engaging performances for the children, we were hoping that the kids would have both a fun and educational experience that they would always remember!”
“Several participants have commented that this interview process has allowed them the opportunity to share memories that they have kept stored away for many years. Without grant funding, many of these stories may have been lost for posterity.”
“I’m really looking forward to the start of the 2009 school year because the students at Woodruff seemed to have fallen in love with the library as the 2008 school year ended.”
If you can’t guess, click on the link above and prepare to be amazed, excited and enthralled with what the Illinois Library Community has been able to do with LSTA Funds from the Illinois State Library. Who knows, you just might find some inspiration for next year’s grant applications.
Update from WebJunction Global
The following post is recreated from BlogJunction, as a preview to the next WebJunction.
A new site is the result of a host of decisions both large and small. One of the more important decisions has to do with defining the top-level information buckets on the site. In the case of the next WJ, with so much new and exciting functionality, there are both functional and conceptual implications to these top-level nav decisions that, we hope, will give you insight into the possibilities for the new site. Here’s a preview:
The first thing to note is the My WebJunction tab–this along with the related Public Profiles (available from just about anywhere you see another member’s name) gives you a *social* view of information, based on what you and others have identified as important and interesting.
As before, there’s a Courses tab so you can easily get to e-learning resources.
Next you’ll see that we’ve pushed *subjects* (Library Services, Technology, Library Management) to the forefront: in the next WJ we’ve integrated documents and discussions together onto *topic pages*; while courses currently live in their own catalog (and people do like to search for them there), in the course of time we have plans to add course listings to topic pages as well. This means subjects are more visible, making it easier for you to get more quickly to what you want to know about.
Finally is the Member Center, the place to go for help and best practices for using WebJunction’s wide array of new interactive capabilities.
And to complete our Tab Tour, here’s the tabbed layout that appears on a typical topic page:
- Overview is the “home page” of the topic page, where page managers can keep you informed about key resources on the topic.
- Documents lists articles and uploaded files on the topic–and allows you to post your own.
- On Discussion you can view and contribute to discussion threads on the topic.
Our intent is that these design decisions will get you closer to the information you want in the most suitable format. We look forward to hearing what you think!