Yatzee and biscotti: A visit to Southern California's board game cafe

Jolene Kemos

Gonzalez, S. (2014, May 1).  Yatzee and biscotti:  A visit to Southern California’s board game cafe [Web log post].  KCRW Which Way L.A. Retrieved from http://blogs.kcrw.com/whichwayla/2014/05/yahtzee-and-biscotti-a-visit-to-southern-californias-board-game-cafe

Descriptive Summary:

This article profiles a new cafe in Los Angeles. GameHaus houses over 700 board games that range from the traditional to the obscure.  The cafe and model for business responding directly to the needs and wants of the community.  They provide space, snacks, and games catalogued by theme.  As a means of introducing patrons to new games, they offer regular special events and tutorials. Further mention is made of the culture that is developing in which strangers are willing to play with each other, or support the learning of new games. Employees are tasked as "sherpas" to bring patrons into the full experience of the gaming options.

Evaluation:

It is very inspiring to see models of user service and participatory service in unexpected places. GameHaus models meeting the needs and desires of a community and employs its customers as creators of knowledge content and expertise.  This is a perfect analogy to the participatory culture we are trying to cultivate in LIBR 233.  

Beauty

(post by Allyson Bogie)

This is beautiful. Exquisite, to my eyes. The polar opposite of my hideous library website.

Okay, hideous is an overstatement and my apologies to Charlotte Gonzales. It's not her fault--the site already existed before she came on board. But seriously. Beauty, personified. How do I make my site simple and functional like this?

There's plenty of information, even though it looks sparse. Each white bar pulls down (click the link above to see the actual template).

Sure wish I knew more web design...doh!

One thing Schmidt talks about in the article introducing this template is what to do about the information below the fold (ie what you would have to scroll down to see). Here are his rules on that:
1. Get ride of it.
2. Go to rule 1.

Here's the website for the Walter Read Middle School library. I think they're doing something pretty similar to the image below.

Next step: How to fix my library's VLC...stat!

Schmidt, A. (2012, September 18). Starting with simplicity. [web log post]. Retrieved from www.walkingpaper.org.  

Stanford library changes and UX

entry by Allyson Bogie

Dempsey, L. (2012). Two things prompted by a new website: Space as a service and full library discovery. Lorcan Dempsey's Weblog. Accessed from http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/002202.html.

Lorcan Dempsey writes here about the new Stanford University library website. He compliments two new features. First, the new homepage has a set of links along the top, including one that offers the actual space of the library as one of the library services. There is also a page with the library hours that will actually tell you what is open in that moment, not just a static list of branches/locations and times open. I would find this soooo helpful for my local public library systems!

Secondly, the new catalog produces results from the entire library, not just books or articles. You can enter any type of search term--author, keyword, subject, title, etc, OR something like worldcat or renew books. It's almost like Google for the library page, but the search results come up in a great "bento box" style format.

I just read about a class that will be offered in the spring by Aaron Schmidt, about User experience (UX). I am very interested in UX both in libraries and elsewhere, and I think that this article dovetails nicely with the upcoming class. Here's the link if you're interested: https://slisweb.sjsu.edu/current-students/courses/syllabi/spring2013/schmidt/287-info

What do you think about these new website features? And is anyone else excited about the field of UX? I am really fascinated by it!!