Proud History, Troubled Present
Orange, Massachusetts is nestled in the Pioneer Valley along the Millers River. It used to be a bustling manufacturing center, but in recent years the town has seen tough times. Unemployment is high, and the district's high school drop-out rate is among the highest in the state.

The Library's Role
We see an important role for the library in helping to improve the lives of the people of our community. We are drawn by the metaphor of our river as a continuing source of life and energy and view the library as a source of new ideas and information that can help our people figure how they can make a better future for themselves and their families.. In the words of poet Trustee Robert Collen, we see the Library as "a new light...come to restore."

The Role of our New Web Site
We asked Extra Mile Design to help us make better use of our web site to reach our neighbors and bring them into the library where they can meet other Orange residents to talk about common issues and gain new insights from each other and from the fine speakers, exhibits, and programs we've brought in.

We just love the look of our new web site. We wanted something clean and clear, to help our users find their way around. Extra Mile took special care with the organization of the information, and made sure that differing kinds of information are clearly indicated by consistent differences in type face, color and size, or by separation and placement, or by the presence of icons or other imagery to help people "see" what help is available (Fig. 1, Fig. 2).

For example, in order to help people take advantage of the extensive research databases provided by MLIN, in addition to creating easy links to the databases, each database is accompanied by its description, which appears in a separate small popup window when the user clicks on "description" (Fig 2) .

Our "River, Factory" Banners
When Sue Edwards of Extra Mile Design brought the first mockups, she put a wonderful picture of a river, trees and a bird as a placeholder for some images to be developed later. We asked if we could keep the picture, but add some factories to it, to represent both sides of Orage - its rural setting, and its history as a factory town. You can see the original picture on the Research page, shown here (Fig. 2), and the whole collection of seasonal changes just below it (Fig. 3). The home page screen shot at the top of the page (Fig. 1)shows the Millers River and our factories in winter.

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Fig 1. Here is the WML home page in winter.

Fig 2. Here is the WML Research Tools page.

Fig 3. Here are our "River, Factory" banners.