Bull Run, Virginia
April 5, 2008
Bull Run Regional Library, Virginia
My first look (in this journal) at a public library using Web 2.0 tools.
The Bull Run Regional Library doesn’t seem to have much of a webpage, just a page with directions and hours of operation on the website of the Prince William County Library. There also does not seem to be a link from the Prince William County Library to the wiki page. I think that this is because the wiki is not formally affiliated with the Prince William Country Library, but rather was made by “a creative and dedicated person” who “made this wiki to provide information about Bull Run Library and to provide a platform for suggestions.” (from the wiki page here).
Bull Run Regional Library (Prince William Country Library Homepage)
This wiki was created using pbwiki. I am not a huge fan of pbwiki. We tried to use it for one of our course group projects and found it clunky.
The Bull Run Library Wiki is actively encouraging patrons to contribute, and incorporates several other Web 2.0 tools, with links to Library Thing and Library Elf (a cool little application if your library doesn’t provide email due date reminders), and offers an RSS feed from their Calendar of Events, which is a good idea! They also have a link called “Calculate the value of your library usage” which seems like a great idea (it’s always good to remind patrons of the value/cost of their library), but unfortunately it’s a dead link.
It was a little hard to find the other pages of the wiki. There isn’t a Table of Contents. There is a list of external links. I finally noticed a tab called Recent which led me to all kinds of other pages.
I liked the calendar of events at the bottom of some of the pages (adult, young adult, children).
There is a picture of the Children’s Section of the library on the Children’s Page, and it looks great! Fun neon sign. What a good way to help entice patrons to come into the library!
(Photo from BullRunLibraryWiki)
I liked the RELIC page “The Genealogy Doctor is in”. The Ruth E. Lloyd Information Center (RELIC) is a special collection devoted to genealogy and local history and is housed at the Bull Run Regional Library. RELIC
When I first looked at the Bull Run Library wiki, I found one of their contributors had added an image generated by showing the wiki website as a graph (here).
Bull Run Library Wiki as a graph
I liked the idea so much, I made one myself. You can try it too, if you want, at Website As Graph).
If I were a patron of the Bull Run Regional Library, I would definitely use this wiki as it contains a lot of valuable information that isn’t available elsewhere on the web.
