Final Group Project

I have to admit that I was slightly skeptical when we were assigned to write a research paper as a group.  But I have to state that I could not have been happier as to how it turned out! 

Lindsay, Lee and I worked great together!  We wrote on Drupal, and it turned out great!

Here's the link if you'd like to learn a little more about Drupal, its advantages and disadvantages and its application in libraries today.

The end is in sight

I just finished with the first draft of my section of my group's final project.  The end of Maymester is SO close!  Still have more drafts to go and still have to get the whole paper together, but the end is in sight!


It was really neat getting to write the post for one of this module's discussion topics.  Maybe I still want to be a professor deep down! :)  It was also cool that Steven and my topic was the Internet Archive.  I love that site!  Oglethorpe has digitized all of its old yearbooks, and they are up on that site.  The past academic bulletins are on there, too.  They are all text files with no graphics, but it's neat to see!

CMS Interview

Al Fuller (VSU alum and son of former VSU employees!) is Systems Manager at a small, private liberal arts college.  The university library does not have CMS control over its part of the university’s website, but it is controlled by the IT and public relations departments.

Interview

Eli: How and where did you hear about Content Management Systems?

Al: I’ve been using CMS systems since the 90’s where Vanstar and a homebrew system using Frontpage as the client app.  I use to be an IT consultant and would help clients with whatever system they had in house.

Eli: Had you used CMS at previous institutions where you worked?  If so, which ones?

Al: I mostly used SharePoint, since that’s what most of my clients used.  I use Wordpress for several of my own sites.  I have also use Joomla and Drupal, but disliked these two so much I would try and refer customers to other consultants if they used these.

Eli: For which parts of your website do you use Contribute?

Al: Currently the entire [college] website, except for the front page.  The Summer area was not made to use Contribute, so some tweaking in Dreamweaver or Notepad are needed.

Eli: What were your motivations in adopting the current CMS for its use by your college?

Al: At the time Contribute was the leading commercial CMS system and did exactly what was desired for the website.  The company that designed the site did so with using Contribute in mind.

Eli: What were your decision-making criteria for selecting the CMS that you finally settled on?  Among which brands did you choose?

Al: This was done before I was onboard, but I have been told the decision was influenced by the design company that was used.  I do not think any other system was considered at the time.

Eli: Did you consider open source versus subscription when choosing a CMS?

Al: The IT management at the time did not have any faith in Open Sourced software, so no. 

Eli: Did you consider cost when choosing a CMS? 

Al: I do not believe so.  However, it is worth noting that we get a good price on Adobe software.

Eli: Did you consider user-friendliness when choosing a CMS?

Al: Yes.  Contribute is extremely easy for the majority of the users.

Eli: What was your greatest deciding factor?

Al: Compatibility with the site as it was designed, ease of collaboration.  Control of content.

Eli: What are the important benefits or advantages of the CMS you are using now versus the old system or another CMS system you’ve used in the past?

Al: The major benefit is that users are pulled from Active Directory, our central ID system.

Eli: Are you happy with the service the CMS has provided?

Al: I am happy with the software.  However, the part of the process that is between the chair and the keyboard sometimes disappoints me.

Eli: Are there plans to change anytime soon?  If so, why?

Al: University Communications [public relations office] will have the site redesigned and wants to change the way content is produced.  This second part is mainly because participation from Staff and Faculty is not very good in the current system.  The system that is in the lad for the new site is Wordpress.

Reflection

The primary lesson that I learned from this assignment was that some libraries do not have control over their own CMS and must rely on IT and public relation departments for access.  This was slightly surprising since information often needs to be updatable quickly and easily by staff.  If an additional level of permissions and bureaucracy exist, the organic nature of libraries—and universities for that matter—may be hindered.  The goals of the library and university may be in conflict if control is limited.  Or top-down decisions may affect the library, but the staff may have little control or a voice in deliberations.  Recently, limited access has been granted to specific employees who may control the content on individual departments’ parts of the site but the overall structure and backend of the site is out of their control.  Each department must live within the limits of the CMS.

Also, I found it interesting that open source programs were not considered due to the opinion of the IT administration.  It made me wonder if the level of open source commitment is dependent upon not just the individual backgrounds of the IT staff member but also the level of directorial success.  That is, once a “techie” becomes a director or high-level administrator, he or she starts to think more proprietary over open source. 

Capstone

I just emailed my Capstone survey to thirteen archivists at the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference member colleges!  How exciting!!  I can't wait to start hearing back from them!

I can't believe it's over half over!

I can't believe that the Maymestser is over half over--only ten days left!  I kind of wish I had taken this class during the regular term so it wouldn't be so rushed.  Only two modules and two assignments left.

I really am learning so much in this class.  I would NEVER have activated my Twitter account or created a webpage with Joomla! without prompting.  While the website creation was pretty time consuming and frustrating at times, I’m so glad that I did it.

I'm also excited to start the group project.  It will be fun to interact with my group mates--Lee and Lindsay.  We are going to meet in WIMBA on Wednesday to talk about which option to choose.  I contacted the Director of the Library at Oglethorpe to ask her the CMS questions for assignment two.  Hopefully she’ll have time to get with me to talk about it soon.

Joomla!

I posted this refelection on using Joomla! on both my site there as well as in BlazeVIEW, but I wanted to cross-post it here, too.  Note, it took me almost eight hours to create six linked pages in Joomla!

I have had limited experience with creating websites. I have created two blogs, and I created a site years and years ago while a teenager through my AOL account. I also know very little about HTML, but I am learning some basics of the language for my current job. Based on the demo video I expected Joomla! to be very user-friendly. Unfortunately, it was not. It was much more difficult taking a template and creating one’s own page. I spent about an hour trying to use a template before I had to give up and start over from scratch with a different email address! With the menus having to be linked articles correctly before anything can be seen, it made it very confusing. I had to remember exactly how I did something to recreate it for a different menu or article. I chose the parks template and tried to change the text in the current format to cut down on the confusion. It still proved very confusing.

I think that if there were more demo videos that were shorter and covered specific tasks it might make it easier to understand. One 32 minute demo video does not seem very efficient. More time could be spent on creation rather than signing up and following the directions in the email. Also, there should be different options regarding fonts and text formatting. It was very difficult to create the text in Microsoft Word then copy and paste it over. The formatting failed to come over and there was no easy way to standardize the font in Joomla! Further, there should be an internal spell-checker in the text fields.

Google Sites—which I used for my electronic portfolio in Foundation—was much easier to use than Joomla! I do not think I would consider using it for a library webpage if I had to make the decision. The user unfriendliness outweighs any benefits I can see.

Web 2.0 to CMSs

I really enjoyed the dive into Web 2.0, but I am excited to begin our next module. With that stated, I have no experience whatsoever with any content management systems (CMS). A long, long time ago (about twenty years?!?) I set up a webpage though my AOL account, but since then my limited blogging has been my only online contribution to the World Wide Web. From our readings, Drupal seems pretty neat, but I’m excited to try Joomla out, too. I hope that what I learn I can share with Oglethorpe for our own website.

This class—while very, very intense!—has really exposed me to different technologies that without this class I would never have experienced. I’ve been shunning Twitter and had no real dedication to blogging, but I’m really glad that I’m being pushed out of my technological comfort zone. That’s the true purpose of this education.

Finding a Wiki

The Philip Weltner Library at Oglethorpe University serves a community of 1,000 students (almost exclusively undergraduate), 50 faculty, and 200 staff. Like many small, academic libraries, the Weltner Library is always looking to its sister institutions for advice and support.  With no budget for formal conferences or interactions with other small colleges, the director has decided to establish a wiki that may be used by the staff of the Weltner Library as well as the librarians at Agnes Scott College, Spelman College and Moorehouse College.  Other similar libraries may be added later based on the success of the endeavor.  The librarians would utilize the wiki to discuss problems that they are having that may cross the gamut of topics including patron difficulties, budget concerns, collection development, staffing issues, exhibits and displays, etc.

MediaWiki is the best option for Oglethorpe’s Weltner Library for a variety of reasons.  Frist, it is free.  This is very important since there is no budget assigned for the wiki’s creation.  Second, using this wiki each contributor may be given a different level of permission.  For example, the directors of each college may have all-access, but other librarians may have only access to post and respond but cannot delete information or they may be able to post, respond and delete in specific areas of the site.  This could be useful especially if the directors desire a high-level discussion on a confidential topic.  Third, knowledge of computer languages is not required to post and edit pages within the wiki.  Finally, there is a calendar plug-in that could be useful if the librarians would like to easily schedule meetings between themselves.

Encyclopedia Britannica Editor?

As someone who has had a blog and Twitter account for two days, I'm really liking it!  While I have only tweeted once, responded to another tweet once and re-tweeted once, I'm getting the hang of it!  I even tweeted a picture.  The first tweet was kind of intimidating.  I wanted to write something profound, but how can you do that in only 140 characters?

As for other Web 2.0 examples and me, I've had a Facebook account for probably seven years and haven't ever edited a wiki page.  Once during research for my reference course, I edited the page for "Oglethorpe University" my alma mater and employer on the Encyclopedia Britannica site.  In fact, if you go and look at the listing, it has my name listed as an editor of the entry!  The neat thing about that site, as compared with Wikipedia, is that all edits go through Britannica staff before changes are made.  It's not real time like Wikipedia, but it also has a level of checking before it becomes live.  I contemplated updating my resume with "Editor, Encylopedia Britannica" but decided against it :)

Blogs and Tweets

I created this blog (and will soon create a Twitter account) as a result of a class assignment.  I blogged once before when I studied abroad in college so that I could keep my family informed of my adventures while in England.  It was hard to get into the habit of blogging regularly, and once I returned, I never blogged again--until today.  I am very excited, though, about sharing my experiences in this course and--hopefully if I can keep in the habit of posting--long after the semester is over!

When I think of Web 2.0 I think of social media--Facebook, Twitter, MySapce (if that still exists!), etc.  I think of the massive benefits (especially compared to the small cost) of libraries utilizing new technologies.  The goal of all libraries is patron access.  If this can be achieved to a greater level using fewer resources, that's great!  There is also a personal benefit to those library professionals who are looking to gain a position in a library or move up professionally.  A web presence is very important in the current tech-crazy world.