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Widgets on the Website: New Library site connects and communicates
ROCHELLE MAZAR, Emerging Technologies Librarian

The University of Toronto Mississauga Library has a new website. The new website is designed to be a communication tool. As the information needs of students and faculty change through the term, so will the site. Incorporated within it are various Web 2.0 applications to ensure the website is current, relevant and useful to users.

Twitter Twitter allows users to publish brief (140 characters) messages and to follow other users’ messages. The U of T Mississauga Library uses Twitter to make announcements to its community. Look for the Twitter widget in the top left of the website under the U of T Mississauga logo. Why use Twitter? Twitter can be updated from multiple computers without disrupting the rest of the website, it can be updated from a cellphone, and it’s easy to feed the content onto the Library’s website and digital signage. This way, students receive important news faster, even if they aren’t Twitter users.

Blogging The new website has a blogging tool built in, but users may not even realize it. On its site, the Library features a series of categories for posts and has arranged each web page on the site to receive the posts that are most relevant to users visiting that page. For instance, the Instructional Technology web pages contain updates about clickers, Blackboard, Turnitin and UTM submit, and the Li Koon Chun Finance Learning Centre web page features blog posts relevant to business and finance. This enables students and faculty to stay informed of all the latest from the Library in a timely and relevant manner.

Instant Messaging The Virtual Reference service isn’t new at theU of T Mississauga Library, but it certainly is more prominent than ever. On most pages of the new website, users can find a chat widget titled "Ask". Students with a question can type their message into the box and receive an immediate answer from a U of T Mississauga Library staff member, without leaving the web page they’re on. This service doesn’t require any logins or special software because it works with the browser.

Flickr To showcase the dynamic building that houses the collection and student study spaces, the Library has set up an account with Flickr , a photo–sharing service, to house professional photos of the Hazel McCallion Academic Learning Centre. Rather than expect users to find these photos buried over at Flickr, these latest images are importing directly onto the Library’s website via the new interactive Flickr widget. Moving your cursor over the widget makes the images rotate. Clicking on an image brings you to the Flickr web page dedicated to it and provides more information.

RSS Sometimes the key content users need comes from somewhere else: an announcement from the St. George campus or a Blackboard server status update, for example. Rather than provide a link, the Library is using an integrated RSS reader to syndicate that content onto its web site. It’s seamless. If content changes elsewhere, it is automatically updated on the Library’s site, creating a real hub of information that is constantly updated — both by the Library staff and by those doing work that the Library and its users follow and depend on.

Have comments or questions about the new website? Please let us know: http://library.utm.utoronto.ca/contact.

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