The Parkland Regional Library (PRL) unveiled its new website December 5. It was long overdue according to director Helen McCutcheon.
“This is like a Porsche compared to an old beat up VW,” she said.
The new site is cleaner, more intuitive, more interactive and less static.
“With a website you need to maintain it and update it and we’re committed to doing that; there’s going to be something new every day,” McCutcheon said.
The library has
She hopes the site will engage new users, but also that it will highlight the fact that the library is much more than just buildings with books in them.
“I don’t think they know the full range of the services we provide,” she said.
That includes Internet-connected computers in the branches that users can access, inter-library loans, and electronic resources.
Licensing electronic resources is an area McCutcheon has been concentrating on over the past couple of years. All people need is a library card to gain access to some amazing subscription services.
The library currently offers Library2Go and Freading, where users can download audiobooks and e-books; Zinio, a magazine subscription service; and Freegal, a music subscription service.
McCutcheon said the music service has been extremely popular.
“I really got it to bring the young adults into the library, but what I’ve found is everybody is using it and it’s unbelievable, in the rural areas, all over the region,” she said.
And, as of January 1, the library will be offering Hoopla, a Netflix-like digital movie provider.
Of course, for those who still love the feel of a book in their hands, the library can get hold of just about anything people are looking for. Saskatchewan’s provincial library system allows readers to borrow from anywhere in the province and beyond.
PRL oversees 54 libraries in the region. Since most are very small, Yorkton is the only one that maintains a permanent collection. PRL rotates books throughout the other branches with two full-time drivers operating four days a week.
McCutcheon explained that the architects of the provincial system had a lot of foresight.
“The population base of Saskatchewan lends itself to that because it’s not a huge population base,” she said. “It really is the way to go because we’ve got a world class collection here, simply because we share all of our resources.”
That includes not just the public libraries, but academic, school, special and government libraries.
“We try to put as much of the popular stuff as we can physically in our branches, but the provincial government is also very very generous in terms of inter-library loans,” McCutcheon said, “So, if there’s something you can’t get in the province, say you’re doing some research and you need books from the University of Alberta or University of Victoria, they provide funding for us to get those resources for you and its free of charge for the patron.”
