In order to have a library, you generally need a permanent building (see figure 3). With that building comes a great deal of maintenance and upkeep. Anyone who has ever owned a house knows that, right? If the roof develops a leak, you have to fix it. If the carpet gets dirty, you have to clean it. A library building of any size is a complex creature. There are few library classes (if any) that teach budding librarians how to install new shelving, how to hire a plumber, how to pick appropriate carpet for a multipurpose room, or how to create useful signage.

Of course, even the smallest library needs some money and a plan for how to spend it in order to function. You need money allocated to acquisitions, utilities, and salaries, to name just a few things. As we'll discuss later in this report, one of the nice things about a library website is that it can be done inexpensively, even if the library is unable to devote significant financial resources to it.

A traditional library of any size will need a diverse staff (see figure 4), including graduate-degree-holding librarians and maintenance workers who actually know how to keep the building in working order. There are one or more administrators who are responsible for the big picture. A library needs people who can keep collections on the shelves, as well as front-line staffers—people who can keep patrons happy. These staffers answer questions at a busy reference desk while kids are screaming, the printer's jammed, and someone just spilled coffee on the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Most library collections (see figure 5) are fairly complex. At the public library where I work, we have everything from comic books to price guides about those comic books, novels, great nonfiction books, databases, and magazines. We have a vast array multimedia content, including videos in many formats and music galore. If a public library in a medium-sized American city has this much variety, one can only imagine just how complex a collection can get.

Many libraries offer meeting facilities, either formally or informally (see figure 6). For example, at Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, you can visit the library café and have a fine latte with a friend. Staff members interact with customers, involving themselves in the local community. Customers interact with us by asking questions or attending an event or program. We're a major meeting facility in Topeka, so local organizations hold thousands of meetings every year at our facility.

Obviously, the digital branch needs some type of Web staff. There must be someone to build and maintain the site and public services staff to interact with customers. These people do typical public service librarian jobs, such as answering questions, but they do it using instant messaging, e-mail, and other means of online communication.

Someone needs to respond to comments made on a library's blog or to the library's Twitter account. Someone also needs to oversee the online library community (much as a branch manager would oversee the physical library community).

A digital branch also has an actual collection that patrons can interact with. A branch is a branch only if it contains materials for patrons to use. With a digital branch, patrons can go beyond mere reading and can interact with reading materials. For example, they can check out and reserve books from the catalog. They can read e-books online. They can listen to and download audiobooks. They can read, browse, and search for periodical articles.

But we don't need to stop with the whole reading thing, do we? After all, this is the Web! These days, our libraries can offer librarian-created content such as blogs, videos, and podcasts. This content is important for four reasons:

1. The content is focused on helping patrons find and use our materials in a better way.
2. It allows library staff to display a bit of organizational personality. A video explaining how to use a database, for example, can be made in a fun way that still teaches the skill.
3. The librarian has turned into the author. Traditionally, libraries have housed other authors’ materials and helped patrons navigate through that mound of knowledge. Now, with the advent of user-generated content, we too can write for our patrons. How cool is that?
4. We can even go one step further and allow our patrons to join in the fun—with patron-created content. Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library is doing that by allowing teens to post videos to our YouTube account and book reviews to our teen blog. There are many other ways to allow patron participation. This is really not much different from the way some libraries collect books written by local authors—it's all patron-created content.

With the digital branch, we also have a very real destination that we need to maintain in order for it to grow and change. This digital destination is the equivalent of the traditional library's physical building.

Think about it this way—when people want to buy a book, they can visit the local bookstore, or they can visit Amazon. When they want to buy a shirt, they can visit the mall, or they can head to Zappos.com. In the same way, when they want to visit your library, they should have options. They should be able to visit you in person, or online at your digital branch.

A digital destination has many similarities to a library building. There are clearly laid out places to do things, just as in the library building. For example, your building probably has a children's section, and your website should also have a children's section.

At your digital branch, patrons can interact with you in a way that is similar to the interactions when they visit your library in person. Just as you might have a suggestion box at a physical branch, patrons can make comments on blog posts at a digital branch, or they can send a question via e-mail, text message, or instant messaging. At a physical branch, patrons can reserve materials and participate in library programs. At a digital branch, patrons can subscribe to parts and pieces of your content using RSS feeds or attend a virtual book club using a forum you have created.

The concept of community is crucial to any library. Without a community to serve, a library has no reason to exist. In a physical library building, your patrons have many ways to interact with library staff and each other, thus continuously building the reciprocal relationship between the library and the community. At your digital branch, they can do many of those same things:

• People can hang out there. Patrons can hang out at the library's digital branch by frequenting blog comments, by friending and then interacting with the library on social networks, or by attending book clubs and visiting forums.
• The digital branch is a real place to attend meetings. You can set up digital-based meeting spaces. You can offer slideshows, share Google documents, or give a LiveMeeting presentation to your local business users and teach them how to use a hot new business resource owned by your library. You can also set up video or screencast tutorials or hold an event in Second Life.
• The digital branch is a real place to interact with library staff. This is also a type of community activity. When patrons walk up to the reference desk to ask a question, they are playing an active role in the library's community. This can happen digitally via blog comments, IM, and text reference services; comments and discussion groups in social networks; and more casual questions via a status update service like Twitter.