{"id":7854,"date":"2014-04-17T10:00:28","date_gmt":"2014-04-17T14:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/?p=7854"},"modified":"2025-11-14T22:39:05","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T03:39:05","slug":"65-365-library-design-problem-solved-perhaps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/2014\/04\/17\/65-365-library-design-problem-solved-perhaps\/","title":{"rendered":"65 of 365: A library design problem solved, perhaps."},"content":{"rendered":"
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nowhere placemark geolocation by John LeMasney via lemasney.com<\/p><\/div>\n

I was alerted to Toby Greenwalt’s great blog theanalogdivide by Sophie Brookover of Library Link NJ<\/a>, in which Toby just proposed a series of design problems as they relate to libraries. I love a good design problem. Here he introduces the first problem, and below I answer it in my own way.<\/p>\n

“Your first challenge? Create a online library card signup. \u00a0 You could say that signing up for a library card is our equivalent of what websites refer to as onboarding \u2013 the process with which a user becomes part of that site. Sites invest significant work-hours and enormous sums of money to make this process as appealing as possible?<\/p>\n

Libraries? Not so much. Whether through requiring in-person visits, confusing policy, or resorting to PDFs, libraries tend to get in their own way when it comes to attracting new users. We can do better than this. I\u2019d like to use this inaugural Challenge to prove it.<\/p>\n

Your criteria:<\/p>\n