GoLibrary

Northern Lights Library System (NLLS) was looking for an innovative solution to help it fulfill its mission to provide library services to Indigenous communities in Alberta, Canada.

The NLLS team had tried several initiatives – book buses, carton libraries, and in-person outreach – to connect with this underserved audience. But they soon realized they were missing large segments of the Indigenous population, many of whom live in rural areas miles away from a physical library.

Facing budgetary restrictions of their own, the NLLS team decided the best solution was to directly market their existing library services to Indigenous communities, with a purpose-built site that encourages online library card registration, simplifies the process, and provides immediate access to online services. They turned to Mugo Web to develop this web solution. 

NLLS knew about Mugo Web thanks to the development specialist’s long-standing partnership with the neighboring regional Marigold Library System and Peace Library System. While Mugo Web’s experience building library websites (and crucially for this project, integrating with ILSes) was important, NLLS envisioned something very different from the standard library site. The project, eventually launched as GoLibrary.ca, didn’t need to provide comprehensive features and services.

GoLibray.ca had one primary function – connecting people to their local library through a central registration process and providing immediate access to online resources via the delivery of a unique library card ID.

Getting librarians on the same page

The largest hurdle for this project was not technical, it was organizational. The libraries, in many cases, had to change their internal policies to allow for online library card registration. “Many of these libraries were used to only providing physical cards," said Tim Kuelker, who oversaw the project’s initial development on behalf of NLLS. "All of them had different requirements and types of information they collected."

NLLS undertook the task of contacting all the member libraries, sorting through requirements, and creating a workflow that met the individual libraries’ needs while being cohesive on the front end for users. The process took months (libraries were still joining the project even at launch), but ultimately it helped the team think through exactly what was needed for the website to work, down to the design wireframes, which they provided to Mugo Web early in the project. 

Mugo Web had several key considerations in the development of this project: 

• User experience had to be at the forefront.
• The site needed to be able to load easily on low bandwidth and on all devices.
• The site needed to follow accessibility guidelines.
• Communication from the site to the user needed to support both email and text messaging.
• Information gathered from the responses had to be shared securely between the site and individual library systems.

Simplified end-user design

Using the wireframes established by NLLS, Mugo’s design partners created a simple but effective design. The functionality is clear and direct, and the limited images and content make for quick load time and straightforward workflows. 

When a user visits the GoLibrary site, they are greeted immediately with the option to get a library card. 

From there, they can select the community they belong to.

This allows the system to find the libraries closest to them, which the users can then choose from to register with. The libraries displayed also provide links to the individual websites and maps. If there are special considerations for getting a card from specific libraries, those are also indicated here.

Once they select a library, users see the third and final step, a standardized registration form. When filled in and submitted, the user’s new library card number is immediately displayed on the confirmation screen. Additionally, the new number is delivered via email and text messaging.

The user also sees a congratulations page that highlights services they can now access with their card. Site administrators can choose in the backend which features are highlighted on this page.

Setting up online user services

When a user submits the registration form, a card number is generated and recorded in the ILS. This number gives the user immediate access to online services, but it is temporary. If the user wants to continue using the services beyond a few months, they need to visit their local library, where they are given a permanent (and physical) card. 

The individual libraries get a notification whenever a user initiates the process to get a card for their library. This is helpful because the ILS doesn’t natively provide these notifications. This allows the library to provide additional outreach to new patrons and keep accurate statistics about the impact of the GoLibrary site on their patron base.

SMS messaging

Email confirmations are fairly standard for projects of this type, but SMS messaging provided a few challenges. Mugo Web implemented this through AWS, which proved to be a cost-effective solution. 

Since this implementation is based in Canada and on Canadian servers, there was a limitation with AWS’s default SMS services that only allow messaging to Canadian numbers. Given the nature of this site and its intended audience, this wasn’t seen as a hindrance.  For similar sites, it would be possible to enable SMS messaging to US numbers by completing an additional registration process to meet US regulatory requirements for SMS compliance.

ILS integrations

The libraries participating in this project all use the Polaris ILS, which simplifies the integration. While they have different Polaris instances, the API was the same for all of them.

The registration forms themselves are implemented in the Ibexa DXP. The form fields are standard across the libraries. 

The card numbers are generated automatically by the ILS after the user hits Submit. Building in a notification for the library was important, as the ILS would not natively alert the library to new card creation. The notification from the CMS provides the details about the patron as supplied in the registration form. 

Marketing an outreach website

Getting the word out about the new GoLibrary site was essential to its success, and required a lot of work on the part of NLLS. They designed several outreach campaigns to make sure residents knew about the service and could start using it.

These included: 

• A series of radio ads played on stations throughout the province.
• Targeted social media ads.
• Community outreach, including booths at festivals and celebrations.

Easy site administration

While the primary concern of the site was establishing an optimal front-end user experience to encourage registration for library services, it also needed to be easy to manage for site administrators. The backend is run on Ibexa DXP. Site admins can update existing content efficiently, and it’s a quick process to add pages for new promotions and marketing initiatives.

Updating and adding libraries is simple. Each library’s information is managed separately. Editing (or creating) the record happens on one screen and applies across the site where that information is accessed.

Each community is also listed as a separate profile in the backend, allowing administrators to set up custom relationships with the library listings. This makes targeted outreach and promotion for specific library services simple.

Next steps

The success of GoLibrary opens the doors to expansion and similar outreach. NLLS hopes to use the site to support school library outreach in the future. Since NLLS launched this initiative, other regional library systems, such as Yellowhead Regional Library, Marigold Library System, and Peace Library System have joined, increasing the reach of the project. The work has the potential to go province- or even country-wide; NLLS is evaluating whether or not to maintain management or spin the project off into its own organization if it reaches that scope.

Additional technical features are also in the works to exchange user experience, including integration with Apple Wallet and Google Wallet to produce virtual library cards that could be scanned directly from a patron’s phone.