Timberland Regional Library is having a winter reading contest, which is very cool, with some nice prizes. I heard about it & got pretty excited. I read (on average) a book or two a week, so in 12 weeks I should be able to submit 2 or 3 entries of 5 books each. Yay chances to win!
Except… with TRL & the web there is always a catch. This time around, it’s the submission form:
- A PDF
- That isn’t a form
- That includes the first page of the brochure
- In color
Really? I’m supposed to print out the form – remembering NOT to print the first page – and then hand-write the titles, authors & descriptions of FIVE books? Are you kidding me? I’m left to conspiratorially wonder if they want to limit the number of submissions for some mysterious reason.
Because it’s not like it’s all that hard to make that experience better! I have access to the full version of Acrobat, which lets you add/delete pages & create forms. In less than five minutes I had a version without the cover sheet, that can be filled out on the computer before being printed out. (My version of the entry form is on the Friends of the Olympia Library Website. BTW, Acrobat is freaky good at identifying fields on forms.) I would consider that the bare minimum in web-friendliness. What would be even better?
- An actual online form (and/or)
- Some sort of connection with Goodreads and Library Thing
And maybe more to the point: make it possible for patrons to connect with each other over their reading habits. One of the things I’ve come to love about Goodreads is hearing about books from people I know. Which seems like a perfect fit with the library. Plus, if I have to write a friggin description, it might as well do somebody some good!
I’m still going to enter, of course, with my handy-dandy fill-in PDF. And who knows, maybe I will write some sort of magic glue/export thing to slurp my reviews out of Goodreads & format them for the contest entries. (Hell, I’m already automagically importing them into this blog.) But I’d rather spend the time reading.