WordPress is the ideal web platform for public libraries these days. It’s free, it’s easy for a library staff to install and maintain, and when the staff runs into trouble there is lots of help available in free forums and paid Theme support forums. And there are a lot of consultants and web design companies like Web Design Workplace that can be hired for new builds or repairs. Take a look at this WordPress Public Library Website for the town of Dartmouth MA.

It’s a fully functional library site that borders on artistic. They are using a custom made vertical menu bar on the left sidebar, and a horizontal menu bar under the header. They did not go to a flyout 2nd level on the horizontal menu system but they did not see need to. You will notice an alignment issue near the bottom of the image. That’s the kind of problem a librarian might not be able to solve for her / himself. But the good thing is that there are plenty of qualified WordPress consultants running around working for peanuts.

Would I make any changes to this site? Well yes, a few changes… first I would fix the alignment near the footer of course. But besides that I would do a good tune-up to the meta titles and meta descriptions on every page, I would change the permalinks structure to give better keywords to the urls, and I would look at some new Themes with brighter colors. In particular, the vertical menu in the left sidebar might look nicer with some nice CSS based color backgrounds.

I’m overall impressed with the site and I have the compliment the Dartmouth MA Public Library for picking WordPress and implementing it so well with a really nice style. Job well done !!