The ALA “online communities” website tried hard to discourage me from logging in, but I foxed it and figured it out anyway. “IMIS ID?” That’s internal staff language at ALA. How about “membership number?” How about a tool to remind me of my membership number, which only wonks like me will have memorized and available? And as Jim Rettig once asked, how about the ability to alias our membership numbers to mnemonic names?
The joke was still on me, because the application did nothing. I clicked on the lone online member: nothing. I tried to change my profile: nothing. Three minutes later, it was just mindlessly grinding away. So I killed it.
I’m on a committee where we agreed to work within this environment, but if it’s not available for committee work, I don’t know how I’msupposed to do this.
Posted on this day, other years:
Rather frighteningly, I do have my Ontario Library Association membership number memorized. But that’s because the OLA actually provides one very useful service: members get free access to Wilson’s Library Literature. Well, OK. It was useful, before Wilson made it available to everybody.
One can only wonder what exemplars the ALA web group (or many other organizations) looks to when designing such portals.
Thanks for the feedback, Karen – we really do appreciate it. I had a lot of problems logging in myself, so I feel your pain.
We know there are a lot of problems with the “Online Communities” service, which is why it hasn’t been officially launched yet. This is a great example of what’s on the list of things we want to fix before it’s ready for prime time.
Having said this, though, I think the software has a lot of potential if we can fix the interface and some core issues.
On the horizon:
– A wiki where ALA staff and members can post suggestions and recommendations for enhancements. I won’t promise we can implement them all, but we want to make this easy-to-use with compelling content, and obviously we can’t do that without member feedback.
– A wiki as the “help” section for “Online Communities.” Again, a collaborative environment for staff and members.
– A more functional login page. One that has important things like *instructions,* a link for help, a description of what OC is, etc.
– Ideally, Facebook-like features that let you connect with your colleagues based on interests you provide in your profile (opt-in, of course).
And more. nyone can contact me (800-545-2433 x2461 or jlevine@ala.org) for OC-related questions, suggestions, complaints, etc., although hopefully we’ll have the wiki going soon.
Thanks, Karen. I have been secretive in my complete inability to manage any ALA sponsored web site. I have my member number on a pink sticky note on my monitor. Sometimes it works.
Katharine
Karen,
What Jenny said.
Earlier this week, a couple of us were getting some instruction on using online communities for one of the two internal staff committees that are trying to work with it. Had we tried an internal roll-ouut first, some of these glitches would have been caught sooner.
And no, I haven’t a clue what my member number is either, despite having had it since it was assigned 20 years ago … thank goodness for “remember me” prompts … which I now have on two computers and 3 browsers!
Karen Muller