Web Management

I don’t know how she does it, but Sierra’s blog, Creating Passionate Users, always has great posts and provides much thought fodder for me. here are some quotes from a recent post:

• “Good usability is like water flowing downhill”
• “Playing the game should be challenging. The interface should be brainless.”

And an excerpt: “But while my earlier comments on this were mostly about usability, I hadn’t thought of it [the water flowing downhill thing] as a management
principle. (Works great with kids, too) Think about how many procedures
we see in companies that feel like hacks… workarounds for a system
that makes it too easy to make mistakes. And you see it from the
highest levels of business right down to the duct tape someone put over
the switch that you must NEVER EVER TURN OFF.”

Go read the article, and apply it your websites.

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Here’s a link to my slides from my presentation at the Computers in Libraries conference. I presented a session titled “The Basics of Web-Based Experience Planning.” Other people have blogged about it here, here, and here.

cil2006

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(Karen Coombs was the speaker)

summary - open source is cool!

sometimes it’s not free… there might be a licensing cost

still need hardware and time

advantages: change and expand on the source code if you want to, offers an active developer community - very nice!

Foundational Software:

apache, tomcat - another java-based web server
php, perl, python, ruby - open source programming languages
mysql and PostGres - more robust

Content Management:
Drupal - weblogs.ucalgary.ca - for the students
Plone - Requires Zope application server - stony brook suny runs on plone (health sciences site)
Textpattern - much simpler, fewer features

Bloging Software:
wordpress - probably best-known (LITA’s blog runs in wordpress)
WordpressMU - mu.wordpress.org - alpha stage, multiple blogs
or you can do a wordpress farm to run multiple blogs…

Movable Type - create multiple blogs with multiple authors (UHouston uses this) - another university runs thousands - mt is very scalable

Wiki software:
- mediawiki, PHP Wiki, Pm wiki - usc aiken gregg-graniteville library - runs on a wiki…

maintenance
awstats, w3c link checker, log validator - checks to see if your HTML is valid

other tools
Nvu, opensourcewebdesign - free code
tinymce.moxiecode.com - wysywyg html editor - open source, incorporate into your site. It looks like word. It can be incorporated into a CMS

htdig, Lucene - full text search engines written in Java

Furl and Wikipedia both use Lucine… hmm…

CIL2006 

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(Jason Clark was the speaker)

Examples:
- Google maps, sproutLiner, Yahoo Instant Search, Google Suggest, Scriptaculous wiki
- Rather than everything on the page changing when you request new info, only the new info loads (no page refresh) - this makes the page and the site faster.
- scriptalicious - showed a drag and drop interaction

AJAX uses:
- javascript
- xhtml
- xmp httprequest() objects
… to communicate with a server side request

Library use of AJAX:
- browsing subject titels
- predisplaying indexes and database categories
- complex ILL or contact forms
- federated searching
- opac and digital library interfaces

Used the right way, ajax can help save the time of the user - that’s good.

He showed something  he built - it searches amazingly fast, only the new info changes (in this case, the search results) - nothing else on the page changes

There’s a lot of potential here…

Why is it good?

open standards. Reduces number of pages needed
faster interface
more efficient use of bandwidth
the xmlhttprequest object - becoming a w3c standard

why is it bad?
- breaks the back button
- decreased usability
relies on client side processing (many didn’t actually work during his examples)

when to use it?
search functions
streamlining
processing large datasets
validating complex forms
predictable, controlled user environment (this is needed) - right now, it should be add-on functionality)

cil2006

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KCResearch now has a live URL…. www.kcresearch.org. You can read about our project, find out who is partnering with us, etc. This site will eventually include the search portal as well - we just started meeting with fretwell-downing about implementing their c-portal product for this project - it’s gonna be VERY COOL.

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Just what does a web manager do? Here’s a list of stuff I did at work today:

• Checked email, Bloglines (an RSS feed reader) throughout the day.
• Met with supervisor about various projects - once formally in her office, a couple more times informally around the office.
• Added our new interim executive director’s name and email to our contact us page.
• Had email and phone discussions with reference staff about a tax season article for our website.
• Read about WebTrends 7, a website analytics and statistids software package, on the company’s website.
• We filter: I checked some websites that had been requested to be unblocked (they stayed blocked).
• Started working on the 2005-2006 web budget.
• Went for coffee.
• Updated text on a page and closed the helpdesk ticket (we track all IT requests).
• Discussed possible presentation ideas for an upcoming presentation, and sent proposals.
• Started designing a new website - did that the rest of the day (ate lunch somewhere in there, too). This involved creating and editing images, reading a couple of CSS books and hacking already-created CSS off our public website’s style sheet, and working in Dreamweaver.

Whew! I’m tired!

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My library just received some good local press in the Kansas City Star. The article describes (very briefly) a new project my IT department is invlolved in, called KCResearch.

Basically, our two Project Librarians (three year grant-funded positions) are collecting all research done about Kansas City, and storing it in a database we created. We’re also planning on pointing to research that’s already represented online via fretwell-downing informatics CPORTAL software. It’s an exciting project, because community and academic organizations are working together.

And, I’m speaking about the KCResearch project at Computers in Libraries 2005 in March, so I thought I’d supply a reading assignment before the presentation (the article). Should be a good time had by all.

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This article discusses ten things websites should be doing. Here are the 10 things, rearranged a little (because of repetition) and with comments pertinent to library websites:

1. Offering regularly updated information (blogs, CMSs, etc.) and 2. Increased efficiency in news and information distribution (RSS, ATOM, etc.)
Blogs are great ways to quickly and painlessly update information on your website. CMS’s are another (think of them as fancy blogs that keep better track of your info). Or just start typing good ole’ HTML - at least you can have updated information on your site.

RSS, ATOM, etc. all make information distribution quick and easy. If you want frequently-updated information on your site, this is the way to go. Otherwise, you can talk your web developer into creating a custom version of a CMS (what we did). But it accomplishes the same thing - it allows our library staff to update information without messing with HTML, CSS, etc.

3. Alternative methods of information distribution (email newsletters, RSS, del.icio.us, etc.) and 4. Enhanced notification and announcement systems (pings, email alerts, etc.)
Again, RSS… In this case, think of the aggregator part of RSS - sorta like an e-newsletter. The point here is not so much with website design, but how to get new information out to your customers. And RSS and email are two great ways to do this. But remember - we’re librarians! There are other simple ways for us to alert our customers to new information - think printed bookmarks by the circ desk, flyers for library programs, and other more traditional methods. Use those just as often as you use RSS and email!

Pings? Anyone know how this helps? Let me know…

5. A place for your site’s users to offer feedback and input (blog comments, forums, etc.) and 9. Collaborative communication and documentation (Wikis, blogs, etc.) and 10. On-demand support feedback (user-driven FAQs, click-to-chat, etc.)
Besides the methods mentioned, use chat reference, email “ask us” links, or create an online comments form (go here to see ours in action). Just remember to update it if you creat one!

6. Improved performance and code optimization (CSS, XHTML, etc.) and 8. Intelligent system to system communication (XML, SOAP, etc.)
The geek stuff. Translation? Keep your website up-to-date with current coding practices, techniques, and language adjustments. This will keep the techies happy with your site in the short-term, and keep your site working on browsers in the long-term.

7. Multiple ways to access information (multi-faceted navigation, folksonomies, etc.)
Great suggestion, and one I hope us librarians remember. Make sure there is more than one way to access your great information! For example, if someone wants a new fiction book - provide multiple ways to access it - from the catalog, a fiction page, a staff book review page, a genre page, etc…

Have a wonderful Christmas, and here’s to better library websites in 2005!

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I was just taking a peak at Tim Roger’s blog, and he mentioned a very cool idea - that of creating a Web Content Team that does this:
“assess, plan for, and develop content for the library’s [that's Johnson County Library] sites. When I say “develop,” I mean create, write, and negotiate for content that people want access to. The specific focus of all of our content is localness, so the latter statement (negotiate for content) comes down to working with local agencies and organizations to get access to their stuff so that we can make it available.” (quote from his post).

Extremely cool! We’re doing some of that with our site (although in a much more haphazard way), and we’re doing it in a very focused way with our KCResearch project (more about that later). But to create a team that focuses on web content - cool beans. I’m going to find out more about that team, what they do, etc and possibly rework it for my library…

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