Founded in 1854, the Newburyport Public Library (NPL) is located in an 18th century historic building (the Tracy Mansion) that was visited by such notables as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and General Lafayette.
NPL’s mission is to unite people through the pursuit of knowledge, cultural, and social connections’. To better fulfill this mission, they wanted to improve their website with a mobile-optimized, contemporary, easy-to-use design, ADA compliance, updated 3rd party integrations, an improved workflow for updating the site content, and other features.
EASE OF USE
The first goal was improving the usability of the site, making it easier for patrons to see what the site offers and find what they are looking for. We started by reviewing the information architecture, page content, Google Analytics, and making recommendations for improving the navigation.
In addition to a persistent on-site and catalog search in the header, we created a mega menu that displays drop down navigation from the primary navigation e.g. About, What We Have, Events, Kids & Teens, and Archival Center. This allows patrons easy access to links and content included in the main sections of the site.
ACCESSIBILITY
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination and requires digital accessibility for those with disabilities. ADA compliance, specifically the WCAG 2.1 standard (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) ensures the accessibility of website content. The process for ensuring a site meets the WCAG standard includes reviewing designs, content, and code during the project and after the site is launched.
EXTENDING FUNCTIONALITY
Like most library websites there are 3rd party plugins that extend the functionality of a site. For NPL we integrated:
- Assabet Interactive for the calendar of events, museum passes, and room reservations.
- Library of Things integration with the MVLC catalog.
- Acuity for scheduling appointments, a key tool during COVID.
- Google Translate for multi-lingual translation.
- New book arrivals integration with the MVLC catalog.
- A book covers carousel using Syndetics Unbound for integration with the MVLC catalog.
- Ask a Librarian’ chat integration for online messaging using Pure Chat.
- Real time hours displaying when the library is open using the Business Hours Indicator WordPress plugin.
- A newsletter subscribe feature integrated with MailChimp.
We thoroughly enjoyed working with the NPL team and greatly appreciate the opportunity to help NPL achieve its mission, extending their reach into the broader community.
