Four pieces of the web pie ...

I was talking with our Web Content Team a couple of days ago. I was trying to convey my philosophy for what our web services should look like ... here's a slightly less extemporanious version ...

I see four components of the library's web approach ... 1) questions; 2) inspirations; 3) interactions; and 4) enagagements. Each builds on the previous component, and moves us from simply providing a way to answer our customers' generic questions to inspiring deeper ones, and from deep questioning to linking them with others who share (or disagree with) their concerns, and from there to providing means and methods for turning ideas and conversations into real action.

I think we do the question thing pretty well ... we're able to put together content and tools that enable our patrons to ask us or search it out themselves. Currently, they're somewhat limited on what answers they can get, but it's getting better ... it's getting deeper and broader.

We're only just now beginning to venture into the inspiration of ideas ... for example, we've something called Project Insect starting soon ... an "artist in residence" will be painting a large oil on canvas of an insect ... she will be using the web to display her work, techniques, information about the insect she’s painting, etc. As they watch her, as they read about how she does what she does, they will be inspired.

Interaction with the artist is the easy part ... we can stream her, set up a blog and message boards, and use IM to get people involved. Ideally, interaction with the artist will lead to interaction with other viewers, readers, and bloggers.

The engagement thing ... to me, this is the really cool piece of the pie ... wouldn’t it be awesome if we could sponsor an online collaborative work of art created by our patrons with the artist in residence! And the funny thing is, it’s actually pretty easy ...