Site of the Month: Escuela Campo Alegre Library

The Escuela Campo Alegre (ECA) is an English-language international school in Caracas, Venezuela, with a library Web site that puts many of its American counterparts to shame.

Flash with substance: Visitors to ECA's home page are treated to the most effective kind of Flash animation—one that runs quickly and entertains, but allows easy access to the library's resources. Site managers Kathy Turner (Kathy_Turner@eca.com.ve), ECA's high school librarian, and Ann Krembs, the middle school librarian, recruited David Lopez, a talented senior, to create the animation last year, when they updated the site. The animation was intended to highlight CALICO (Campo Alegre LIbrary Connection Online), the library's Web-based Follett catalog. Turner says that due to a high student turnover in the school, which serves expatriate as well as local families, "many students and teachers didn't know what CALICO was… so we put it right in the middle of our home page."

So much stuff: The home page also features links to other resources, including sites of interest for students, teachers, and parents. Turner says that the new design has been very successful in promoting the site to the ECA community. "Often, after an introduction to our site, people will exclaim, 'This is fantastic—I never knew there was this much stuff available!'" she says.