Site of the Month: Medina County (OH) District Library
Walter Minkel -- School Library Journal, 11/1/2002
Libraries nationwide have been wondering what they can do to persuade their users that they shouldn't leap straight to Google when they need answers. Medina County District Library (MCDL), serving a group of suburbs south of Cleveland, offers an alternative: a personal portal called "MyMCDL."
Making Things Easy: Mike Harris (mike.harris@medina.lib.oh.us), MCDL's director, knows that the Web should make things easy. "We want to make our Web site an alternative to visiting the library," he says. MCDL budgeted $50,000 to create its MyMCDL service. Launched last summer, about 500 library users of all ages have signed up for a free personal page. Once users register, they can explore pages of reference databases, such as EBSCOhost and Infotrac, along with selected Web sites for kids, teens, and adults, choose resources, and assemble all of them in one place. The goal is a one-stop library visit.
Still a Few Kinks: Next, Harris would like to make it possible for users to bookmark their personal page so they can go straight to it without logging in. But right now, Lynn Wiandt, manager of MCDL's Seville branch, says, "We are definitely going to be pushing the site as a help for educators, both traditional and home school, and teens love their own space."
