Here is the link to the final paper JL and I worked on: http://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1aSBS21LQrAWIwClno-GmCZf3JUCKGI1_d7M87whSkMs
Here is a link to my video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz9cqY4dMZQ
June 13, 2010
June 8, 2010
In which decisive action is taken
The first three libraries I contacted were unable, for various reasons, to be interviewed at this time. I then posted my questions on WebJunction, in the Wordpress for Libraries group (wp4lib) discussion, where I hoped someone would respond. No one did (and I removed the questions before posting this). Somewhat saddish and after several failed attempts, I managed to locate someone willing and able to interview for Assignmnent 3. The person I 'spoke' with is Wade Stewart, a library tech specialist with AC Buehler LIbrary at Elmhurst College and for the interview I used his library's "ask a librarian" chat option.
Below is the chat transcript, complete with original misspellings and occasional emoticons. (^_^') You may also notice that the entire thing ended up taking about an hour and a half because we were both working during the interview. My very deep apologies for getting this in so late.
13:36 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: Hello, my name is Celia and I'm a student at a Valdosta State University in Georgia working on a project about CMS libraries. If you work with the library website and have 15 min or so, would you be okay answering a few questions about your website?
13:40 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: this is a transfer, please see: https://libraryh3lp.com/queues/ec_reference/calls/guest527619@libraryh3lp.com/537386
13:40 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: this is a transfer, please see: https://libraryh3lp.com/queues/ec_reference/calls/guest527619@libraryh3lp.com/537386
13:46 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: If it is an inconvenient time or if you would prefer not to use IM, I could send the questions via email.
13:47 wades@libraryh3lp.com: sorry, we thought we lost you
13:47 wades@libraryh3lp.com: I am more than happy to answer some questions
13:48 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: Thank you very much! 1. How and where did you hear about CMS?
13:49 wades@libraryh3lp.com: I first discovered CMS in in my grad program for library and info science. I had taken several different tech related courses, such as library 2.0 & web design for libraries.
13:51 wades@libraryh3lp.com: Library Science programs have be heavily promoting the use of CMS's in libraries
13:52 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: That's for sure, we've been talking about things like Drupal and Wrodpress a lot in class! Question #2 What was the motivation to adopt CMS for its current use?
13:56 wades@libraryh3lp.com: I believe the two biggest reasons we adopted a CMS here at Elmhurst: We wanted to be able to manage a large amount of content and we wanted to be able to give our librarians the ability to update web pages with little to no previous html / php / css coding knowledge.
13:57 wades@libraryh3lp.com: Also, over the past two years we have been teaching a course called First Year Seminar which has students using a lot of library 2.0 tools, particularly blogs, which we host through our Wordpress installation.
13:58 wades@libraryh3lp.com: It was much easier to provide all of these elements through a single system rather than having multiple tools hosted in different locations
14:00 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: So ease of use and less tech requirements were part of your decision-making criteria, was there anything else you took into consideration? Cost?
14:04 wades@libraryh3lp.com: I know that costs plays a part in other institutions, however, we are sort of an exception. We have always maintained our library website in-house and have had an outside consultant maintain some of the server-side elements such as our php/mySQL databases. We just moved it from hand-coded, static pages to dynamic, CMS-based pages. We still pay for a consultant for the server-side parts.
14:05 wades@libraryh3lp.com: Part of our decision was also wanting to be an early adoptor
14:06 wades@libraryh3lp.com: CMS's seem to be the cool, must-have thing right now. I'm very happy that our college is using a CMS, however, I personally think that we should have spent more time evaluating our CMS options, such as Wordpress or Drupal or Joomla, etc
14:08 wades@libraryh3lp.com: My predecesor brought Wordpress to elmhurst, however, I believe that Wordpress is still not the best choice as a CMS, because right now, you need a lot of plugins to force wordpress to act like a CMS where as Drupal, for instance, is a CMS right out of the box, so to speak
14:08 wades@libraryh3lp.com: It is a good choice for some smaller institutions, but I feel like we are out growing it...
14:09 wades@libraryh3lp.com: I guess as simple as it sounds, the ability to manage large amounts of content instantly is a pretty big reason.
14:12 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: Okay, 3. What are the important benefits or advantages of CMS you are using now over the old system or another CMS system you've used in the past?
14:12 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: Sorry about the lag.
14:16 wades@libraryh3lp.com: sorry about the delay... I'll be back in just a moment
14:31 wades@libraryh3lp.com: sorry for the delay, i'm back
14:35 wades@libraryh3lp.com: As far as benefits/advantages are concerned, it's really the same answer as the last question. It is really easy to add or update content to our website without having to deal with any hand-coded html, css, or php, etc. If a minor change needs to be made to an element that is site-wide, it can be updated in one place instead of making the same change individually across hundreds of pages.
14:36 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: No problem, I realize you must be busy!
14:37 wades@libraryh3lp.com: Also, For me as a developer, I don't have to worry about someone, without coding knowledge, making a mistake that shuts down the whole website
14:38 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: Which could be problematic... ^_^ What has been the patron response to your use of a CMS?
14:43 wades@libraryh3lp.com: I think for the patron, they get a more efficient and smoother running website. We have had good responses with patrons saying that our website is easier to navigate and the organization of content makes more sense. One of the most critical elements we pay attention to, in terms of patron use, is usability statistics, such as Google Analytics. We make sure that the most visited sties are the most accessible, while also trying to determine whether or not the least accessed content is the least accessed because of it's of lesser importance or because it's buried in the site and hard to find.
14:45 wades@libraryh3lp.com: We also can see what types of computers (MACs, PCs) and browsers (IE, firefox, etc) are accesses the site the most, so that our site is compatible across multi-platforms & browsers
14:46 wades@libraryh3lp.com: At the same time, I'm not sure that the average user really notices that we are using a CMS
14:48 wades@libraryh3lp.com: We are about to start a library technology survey for incoming freshman and transfer students... so in the future, I will have a better answer to that last question
14:51 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: Okay, I hope your survey goes well! The last question I have is: Is there anything else about your experience with CMS that you would like to share?
14:57 wades@libraryh3lp.com: I guess what I would say is that while having a CMS is great, it is very important to pick and choose a system that works best for your organization, taking into account the needs of your web designers, content creators or other staff users, and patrons. Obviously they all need different things from a web site and it's important to find that middle ground that works for everyone. It is important to not pick a particular CMS because it's the current popular item. You have to beware of current and future needs/issues with your website.
14:58 wades@libraryh3lp.com: I hope that was helpful
14:58 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: It was! Thank you very much for your help. I'm sorry to have taken up so much ofyour time, I didn't expect it would be quite so time consuming! Oh, one last thing, do I have permission to use your name and the name of the library you work at in my assignment or yould you prefer to remain anonymous?
15:02 wades@libraryh3lp.com: it's no problem. You are free to use our information. My name is Wade Stewart, library tech specialist with AC Buehler LIbrary @ Elmhurst College. Also, just in case you need it, the wordpress site was originally built and designed by my predecessor, Kyle Jones (http://thecorkboard.org/). If you need anything else from me, you can reach me at wstewart@elmhurst.edu
15:02 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: Thank you very much! I hope you have a great day!
15:03 wades@libraryh3lp.com: you too! Take care.
Below is the chat transcript, complete with original misspellings and occasional emoticons. (^_^') You may also notice that the entire thing ended up taking about an hour and a half because we were both working during the interview. My very deep apologies for getting this in so late.
13:36 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: Hello, my name is Celia and I'm a student at a Valdosta State University in Georgia working on a project about CMS libraries. If you work with the library website and have 15 min or so, would you be okay answering a few questions about your website?
13:40 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: this is a transfer, please see: https://libraryh3lp.com/queues/ec_reference/calls/guest527619@libraryh3lp.com/537386
13:40 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: this is a transfer, please see: https://libraryh3lp.com/queues/ec_reference/calls/guest527619@libraryh3lp.com/537386
13:46 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: If it is an inconvenient time or if you would prefer not to use IM, I could send the questions via email.
13:47 wades@libraryh3lp.com: sorry, we thought we lost you
13:47 wades@libraryh3lp.com: I am more than happy to answer some questions
13:48 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: Thank you very much! 1. How and where did you hear about CMS?
13:49 wades@libraryh3lp.com: I first discovered CMS in in my grad program for library and info science. I had taken several different tech related courses, such as library 2.0 & web design for libraries.
13:51 wades@libraryh3lp.com: Library Science programs have be heavily promoting the use of CMS's in libraries
13:52 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: That's for sure, we've been talking about things like Drupal and Wrodpress a lot in class! Question #2 What was the motivation to adopt CMS for its current use?
13:56 wades@libraryh3lp.com: I believe the two biggest reasons we adopted a CMS here at Elmhurst: We wanted to be able to manage a large amount of content and we wanted to be able to give our librarians the ability to update web pages with little to no previous html / php / css coding knowledge.
13:57 wades@libraryh3lp.com: Also, over the past two years we have been teaching a course called First Year Seminar which has students using a lot of library 2.0 tools, particularly blogs, which we host through our Wordpress installation.
13:58 wades@libraryh3lp.com: It was much easier to provide all of these elements through a single system rather than having multiple tools hosted in different locations
14:00 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: So ease of use and less tech requirements were part of your decision-making criteria, was there anything else you took into consideration? Cost?
14:04 wades@libraryh3lp.com: I know that costs plays a part in other institutions, however, we are sort of an exception. We have always maintained our library website in-house and have had an outside consultant maintain some of the server-side elements such as our php/mySQL databases. We just moved it from hand-coded, static pages to dynamic, CMS-based pages. We still pay for a consultant for the server-side parts.
14:05 wades@libraryh3lp.com: Part of our decision was also wanting to be an early adoptor
14:06 wades@libraryh3lp.com: CMS's seem to be the cool, must-have thing right now. I'm very happy that our college is using a CMS, however, I personally think that we should have spent more time evaluating our CMS options, such as Wordpress or Drupal or Joomla, etc
14:08 wades@libraryh3lp.com: My predecesor brought Wordpress to elmhurst, however, I believe that Wordpress is still not the best choice as a CMS, because right now, you need a lot of plugins to force wordpress to act like a CMS where as Drupal, for instance, is a CMS right out of the box, so to speak
14:08 wades@libraryh3lp.com: It is a good choice for some smaller institutions, but I feel like we are out growing it...
14:09 wades@libraryh3lp.com: I guess as simple as it sounds, the ability to manage large amounts of content instantly is a pretty big reason.
14:12 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: Okay, 3. What are the important benefits or advantages of CMS you are using now over the old system or another CMS system you've used in the past?
14:12 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: Sorry about the lag.
14:16 wades@libraryh3lp.com: sorry about the delay... I'll be back in just a moment
14:31 wades@libraryh3lp.com: sorry for the delay, i'm back
14:35 wades@libraryh3lp.com: As far as benefits/advantages are concerned, it's really the same answer as the last question. It is really easy to add or update content to our website without having to deal with any hand-coded html, css, or php, etc. If a minor change needs to be made to an element that is site-wide, it can be updated in one place instead of making the same change individually across hundreds of pages.
14:36 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: No problem, I realize you must be busy!
14:37 wades@libraryh3lp.com: Also, For me as a developer, I don't have to worry about someone, without coding knowledge, making a mistake that shuts down the whole website
14:38 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: Which could be problematic... ^_^ What has been the patron response to your use of a CMS?
14:43 wades@libraryh3lp.com: I think for the patron, they get a more efficient and smoother running website. We have had good responses with patrons saying that our website is easier to navigate and the organization of content makes more sense. One of the most critical elements we pay attention to, in terms of patron use, is usability statistics, such as Google Analytics. We make sure that the most visited sties are the most accessible, while also trying to determine whether or not the least accessed content is the least accessed because of it's of lesser importance or because it's buried in the site and hard to find.
14:45 wades@libraryh3lp.com: We also can see what types of computers (MACs, PCs) and browsers (IE, firefox, etc) are accesses the site the most, so that our site is compatible across multi-platforms & browsers
14:46 wades@libraryh3lp.com: At the same time, I'm not sure that the average user really notices that we are using a CMS
14:48 wades@libraryh3lp.com: We are about to start a library technology survey for incoming freshman and transfer students... so in the future, I will have a better answer to that last question
14:51 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: Okay, I hope your survey goes well! The last question I have is: Is there anything else about your experience with CMS that you would like to share?
14:57 wades@libraryh3lp.com: I guess what I would say is that while having a CMS is great, it is very important to pick and choose a system that works best for your organization, taking into account the needs of your web designers, content creators or other staff users, and patrons. Obviously they all need different things from a web site and it's important to find that middle ground that works for everyone. It is important to not pick a particular CMS because it's the current popular item. You have to beware of current and future needs/issues with your website.
14:58 wades@libraryh3lp.com: I hope that was helpful
14:58 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: It was! Thank you very much for your help. I'm sorry to have taken up so much ofyour time, I didn't expect it would be quite so time consuming! Oh, one last thing, do I have permission to use your name and the name of the library you work at in my assignment or yould you prefer to remain anonymous?
15:02 wades@libraryh3lp.com: it's no problem. You are free to use our information. My name is Wade Stewart, library tech specialist with AC Buehler LIbrary @ Elmhurst College. Also, just in case you need it, the wordpress site was originally built and designed by my predecessor, Kyle Jones (http://thecorkboard.org/). If you need anything else from me, you can reach me at wstewart@elmhurst.edu
15:02 guest527619@libraryh3lp.com: Thank you very much! I hope you have a great day!
15:03 wades@libraryh3lp.com: you too! Take care.
June 4, 2010
Fiddling around with my blog
I should probably be sleeping, but as I'm not tired yet and I can't really justify staying awake without doing something at least vaugely class related, I decided to try a few things out here.
June 2, 2010
A Long Weekend
This weekend was surprisingly busy. I did my best to keep up to speed on class things, but haven't finished with our assigned readings for this week quite yet. Aside from that, I went to visit my grandmother in Waycross, enjoyed the Memorial Day sales that were going on (I bought about 7 new shirts, almost all of them cost less than $10!), and got a little sunburned.
Things at work were a little hectic today, but J (my amazing boss) told me they would be. It was my first time working after a 4 day weekend and even though I didn't go in until the afternoon, it still got crazy busy from time to time.
I've run into a little snag with assignment 3. The person I e-mailed just got back to me saying that they're overrun right now with the startup of their summer reading program, so I'll have to find someone else to answer the questions I sent. Ya'll can't see me right now, but I'm making my terrified face. This means I have to hope that the institution I e-mailed this evening will have someone with enough time on their hands and enough kindness in their heart to get back to me within the next 2 days. x_x Oh well, maybe I'll get lucky.
Hope everyone else is doing better than me! Also, this is what I use to encourage myself to be a good student.
Things at work were a little hectic today, but J (my amazing boss) told me they would be. It was my first time working after a 4 day weekend and even though I didn't go in until the afternoon, it still got crazy busy from time to time.
I've run into a little snag with assignment 3. The person I e-mailed just got back to me saying that they're overrun right now with the startup of their summer reading program, so I'll have to find someone else to answer the questions I sent. Ya'll can't see me right now, but I'm making my terrified face. This means I have to hope that the institution I e-mailed this evening will have someone with enough time on their hands and enough kindness in their heart to get back to me within the next 2 days. x_x Oh well, maybe I'll get lucky.
Hope everyone else is doing better than me! Also, this is what I use to encourage myself to be a good student.
May 27, 2010
Wordpress
I don’t think it was necessarily difficult to learn to use Wordpress, just time consuming. This is, however, a familiar experience for me when I encounter new technology, not something unique to Wordpress itself. Working on a site that already had content made me a little bit hesitant to try things that I normally would have. My usual way of figuring new things out is to just jump right in without really looking at tutorials, just to see how much of it I can understand intuitively. I think that going about things in this way gives me a better opportunity to get the feel of a website. However, with this assignment, I was worried about messing up the content for the other group members. Therefore, I created another Wordpress account to experiment with (though I did do a lot of the less risky experimenting with the one we were supposed to work with).
It wouldn’t be quite right to say that Wordpress is fun, but it is less stressful than other, similar websites that I have checked out since beginning this assignment (Drupal comes to mind). Whenever I ran into trouble that I couldn’t figure out on my own, I checked out the available guides. They usually got me back on track fairly quickly.
I fiddled around as much as I dared with WP. Sometimes, I had to get creative, like when I couldn't get the custom fields to do what I wanted without just editing the html, and sometimes I would see things that I thought were nifty and then forget where it was that I saw them! I think that's what I have the worst time with, being able to remember where to find everything. Oh well, that's something that would eventually work itself out (probably) with enough practice. The drag and drop we use for widgets is nice, and I really liked how easy changing themes was, but I do wish we had more available themes to play with.
My teammates and I got along fairly well, despite one or two accidental setbacks and the late addition of our fourth member. I do think that with an extra week or two we could do a whole lot more, but for a crash course in WP, I feel we’ve done admirably. As far as I can tell, everybody in our group is 'getting it' now.
I laugh when I look at how long it took me to figure out how to embed videos into our page though, I can’t believe how slow I am sometimes!
It wouldn’t be quite right to say that Wordpress is fun, but it is less stressful than other, similar websites that I have checked out since beginning this assignment (Drupal comes to mind). Whenever I ran into trouble that I couldn’t figure out on my own, I checked out the available guides. They usually got me back on track fairly quickly.
I fiddled around as much as I dared with WP. Sometimes, I had to get creative, like when I couldn't get the custom fields to do what I wanted without just editing the html, and sometimes I would see things that I thought were nifty and then forget where it was that I saw them! I think that's what I have the worst time with, being able to remember where to find everything. Oh well, that's something that would eventually work itself out (probably) with enough practice. The drag and drop we use for widgets is nice, and I really liked how easy changing themes was, but I do wish we had more available themes to play with.
My teammates and I got along fairly well, despite one or two accidental setbacks and the late addition of our fourth member. I do think that with an extra week or two we could do a whole lot more, but for a crash course in WP, I feel we’ve done admirably. As far as I can tell, everybody in our group is 'getting it' now.
I laugh when I look at how long it took me to figure out how to embed videos into our page though, I can’t believe how slow I am sometimes!
May 24, 2010
Whew, I'm wiped!
It has occurred to me that using something like Wordpress isn't difficult, exactly, just very time consuming. For example, when I start looking at things that you can do and trying to figure out how to do them, it tends to take a rather ridiculous amount of time. Perhaps that's just me though, I'm not sure.
In other news, the library I work at has a DVD thiefmay their socks get holes and their hair fall out. Grrr. Can anyone think of a good way to stop them? I really don't get why someone would steal something that they can see for free anyway. Their behavior irks me, whoever they are, and they make bun-bun unhappy too.
I hope we catch them soon!
In other news, the library I work at has a DVD thief
May 21, 2010
Add +1 to Bluff
Today I got to close the library by myself! I was a little bit anxious, but things turned out okay in the end. Things picked up a little bit about half an hour before closing, but it never got really backed up at the desk. Though I did have some patrons come in 2 minutes before closing. They were nice though, got in and got out fairly quickly, so I ended up leaving only about 10 minutes after closing (though most of that was due to my own paranoia and obsessive list double-checking).
I realized, as I was in the parking lot, that I had forgotten to turn off the lights in the bathroom, so I had to go back in andbrave the beeping alarm turn them off. All in all, it was only a little oopsie, and since I remembered before I left for good it hardly counts, right?
Just barely made it back in time for our 7505 guest speaker, Cliff Landis! He seems like a pretty good guy, and he definitely knows his stuff. After the class meeting, I spent a little bit of time looking up the various explanations of cloud computing, because it seems to be a very debatable term. CC appears to be similar to a LAN with online data storage, though I know that's something of an oversimplification.
I'll get back to schoolwork tomorrow, for now it's time to clean house!
I realized, as I was in the parking lot, that I had forgotten to turn off the lights in the bathroom, so I had to go back in and
Just barely made it back in time for our 7505 guest speaker, Cliff Landis! He seems like a pretty good guy, and he definitely knows his stuff. After the class meeting, I spent a little bit of time looking up the various explanations of cloud computing, because it seems to be a very debatable term. CC appears to be similar to a LAN with online data storage, though I know that's something of an oversimplification.
I'll get back to schoolwork tomorrow, for now it's time to clean house!
