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CAP FOR KIDS
By Brett Walther
August 17, 2002
The Oxford County Library Community Access Program (CAP) is pleased to present its long-awaited children's portal.
You can access the Oxford County Library Kids web portal at http://kids.ocl.net, or by following the navigational tabs on the Oxford County Library home page at http://www.ocl.net that are marked with the skink.
What's a skink, you ask?
Apart from being a somewhat elusive reptile native to Ontario, these particular skinks-Sally and Seymour--are the official mascots of kids.ocl.net. A number of skinks-of the soft and cuddly variety, that is-have descended upon the branches of Oxford County Library to promote the launch of the portal in a free draw for children who log in as a new user.
The OCL Kids web portal prides itself on being highly interactive. Once logged in with a user name and password, users can change the appearance of the on-screen display, including the colour and positioning of the content boxes.
This portal is a "one-stop shop" for kids' resources, ranging from links that provide help with math homework to online art galleries that users can cruise through at their leisure. If these links aren't extensive enough for the user, there is the option of searching the Internet with a Safe Search-filtered version of Google, or perusing the OCL's own catalogue for books, magazines and other resources of interest.
What children's site would be complete without games?
In addition to providing informational resources, the OCL Kids site showcases an original game called Seymour's Book Drop. Help Seymour the Skink catch as many falling library books as possible, and see if you can crack the list of Top Five scores! Keep in mind that the books start falling faster with time! Another game featured on the site is the COOL (County of Oxford OnLine) Challenge, which lives up to its name by testing your knowledge of local trivia. More original games are in development.
The fun continues with a "joke engine" that generates a new joke each time the site is loaded or reloaded. Users even have the opportunity to submit their own jokes to share.
One of the most ambitious features of the site is the Poetry section, which allows young people to submit their own creative writing and have it posted on-line for all to see. Users also have the option to provide feedback on the poetry written by their peers.
Further opportunities for interaction can be found under the Poll feature, in which the user can select one of five possible responses to a topical question. "If you could trade places with anyone for a day, who would you most like to be?" How about, "How Do You Read Books?" After you've answered the question, see how your vote stands in relation to popular opinion by checking the "Results" tab.
With veteran Community Access Program Web Team members Ian Barton and Bryan Yeung at the helm, the OCL Kids portal is the result of many months of planning and design, as well as the coordinated efforts of a number of individuals. Involved in various stages of development were fellow CAP Web Team members Neil Reesor and Stephen Scovil, OCL Web Administrator Adrian Smith, and Ingersoll branch supervisor Rosemary Lewis. Content for the portal was approved by a committee comprised of various OCL branch staff and supervisors, who drew upon the interests expressed to them by children who use the public access computers in the libraries.
Congratulations to everyone involved in their efforts to design a highly original and innovative portal that truly stands out from the crowd.
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