Welcome to the new CCPL.org!

Welcome to the new CCPL.org! 

After spending most of 2017 redesigning the old website and migrating years worth of content, the Charleston County Public Library is pleased to launch its new website. What you'll find is a completely reorganized and responsive site that is just as easy to use and look at on a phone or tablet as it is on a desktop or laptop.

Let's take a tour of some of the biggest changes. 

First, this site was designed by you. Your input and ideas guided many of the decisions in how it's laid out and what's immediately accessible on the homepage and in the navigation bar. But beyond that, inspiration from patrons can be found throughout the site. Most of the photos feature library customers who showed up for the casting calls we held this summer. 

You'll also see those photos show up in banner images promoting events at our branches and on social media posts. 

Speaking of social media, we've made it much easier for you to see the things we share on our social platforms. Scroll down the homepage, and you'll find feeds of our Twitter and Facebook profiles. And at the bottom of every page there are links to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Give us a follow, and stay up to date on everything happening at CCPL!

Aside from the major redesign, you'll also find some big features on the new CCPL.org, starting with a much more advanced search. In fact, there are four different search platforms you can use directly from the search bar at the top of the page. 

The default is called Bento -- because search results are displayed in individual boxes for catalog, journals and reviews, book news, databases, and library news resources.

 

 

 

For example, a search for "marriage" will show books and movies in our catalog involving that term, journals about marriage, book news about marriages, and entries from the Charleston Time Machine that mention marriage.

The Bento search is designed to be a one-stop shop for your searches.

There's also the Advanced Catalog Search which shows everything in the CCPL collection but also provides a plethora of options to narrow down the search.

 

 

 

The External Catalog search takes you to the catalog search you see on the consoles in our branches. It's also the catalog linked on the old site. Don't worry, it's not going anywhere! We will always maintain the external catalog for our patrons. 

And if you want to search for something you saw on the website, choose the Website search and you'll see results from across the website, including the calendar of events. 

The calendar has also had a huge facelift. You can view library events as a list or in a calendar view, and the page has options to pare down the results by age group and location. CCPL hosts nearly 6,500 events a year, so breaking down the results is a good idea!

The calendar view lets you pare down the results, and you can also get a listing for month, week and day, which means you can quickly put together a list of things to do at your local branch.

 

 

 

We're also rolling out a room booking service, making it easier for nonprofits, government offices, or groups to reserve rooms for their meetings and programs. You can click through to see what days and times a room is available with just a few clicks of the mouse. And it's easy to find! Just click on the Book a Room link at the top of any page.

One of the biggest changes happened in the Children's area. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We've introduced a new early literacy section, which makes it easier to find some recommended reads for your children and even see the latest children's books added to our catalog. 

Teens will love the ability to get book recommendations from our staff. We have an easy form to fill out that goes directly to our staff so they can provide a personalized list of book ideas based on your preferences. All you have to do is fill out a simple quiz to give the librarians an idea of your reading preferences.

Speaking of an easy form to fill out, our new Careers at CCPL page has a job application form that's easy to fill out and lets you save content you enter as you move through the application process.

For our genealogists and historians, the changes to the South Carolina Room, the Charleston Archive, and the Charleston Time Machine will be a welcome upgrade. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the South Carolina Room, the genealogy information has been compartmentalized into easy to navigate areas. If you're just starting your genealogy journey, the 101 page will get you started. If you're an old pro, you'll love being able to sort the information by life and death records, war records, and city and land records. 

The Archive's finding aids and pathfinders have been turned from PDFs into fully searchable pages on our site. Finding records just got a whole lot easier! 

And for fans of Dr. Nic Butler's podcast, you'll be happy to know that you can now subscribe not only on iTunes but on Android, TuneIn, and Stitcher. If you have a fairly new GM or Chevy vehicle with the touch screen entertainment system, you've seen the Stitcher app built in. Now you can subscribe to the Time Machine podcast and send it directly to your car stereo for your daily commute!

That's just the beginning of the changes made to CCPL.org. Enjoy the new site. After all, you helped make it great!