Litehouse Award

Grand Rapids Public Library

Technical and Usability

This website loads quickly and functions properly. The HTML coding appears to be mostly in order. They are using an internal style sheet. But I couldn't find their declaration statement. All the graphics and photographs appear in their proper places. The web links work and all the information is up to date. The mail links all work great. No special plug-ins are required to view this site. All the website's pages load quickly. The entry page contains all important information to the patron without excessive scrolling. This site is extremely user friendly and easy to navigate. A couple of weaknesses: 1) once within a webpage there is no return to top link. 2) The photographs do not contain an 'alt' in the coding for visually impaired patrons.

Maintenance

The website is updated daily and frequently revised. New content is added to the entry page to grab the user's attention. The entry page contains a highlighted section in the top right portion which carries important information to its users (see graphic to the right).