So you want a website to be able to advertise to potential patrons and communicate with current patrons, but you are not a web designer and don’t have time or inclination to become one. There are hundreds of options for people like you but most of them all cost a pretty penny. Is there anything you can do to get a website at a price point that doesn’t cost a bookshelf and a half of Landmark books? (Note: we are talking about a home page for your library - not a digital catalog or circulation software.) We know of two possible options for a librarian like you:
Option One: Ex Libris Web Design Services
Out of a desire to support the good work that private living books librarians are doing on shoestring budgets, we collaborated with several partners to try to bring powerful resources to librarians as economically as possible. Each of our website design packages includes an annual Biblioguides Membership and ensures that your library is listed on the Private Lending Library Directory, making it easy for patrons to find you and explore what your library offers. (If you already have a Biblioguides membership, please reach out for a quote on a prorated package.)
Pages designed by us will look a little something like this:
To check out our web design packages, click here.
Option Two: DIY Notion Web Design
You could use something called Notion. Let’s think of this as being like LEGOs. Notion is a massive LEGO play space with fancy brick mats, sorters, and structures. Inside of Notion, we can build all kinds of LEGO creations that do powerful things.
We use the LEGO analogy because Notion works with blocks of code that are not unlike LEGO blocks in a LEGO kit. Each paragraph, image, page, and PDF are like a LEGO brick that you can pick up and move around. And you have LOTS of LEGO bricks to play with. And you can build them into structures. But, just like LEGOs, certain laws of physics still apply - gravity, space, that kind of thing.
For busy librarians, this can be super intimidating. But once you master it, you have almost infinite options at very low cost.
To Learn More About Building Your Own, click here.