Final Paper:
Presentation:
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
So long, farewell...
I am currently working on the paper/presentation, and I am very happy to have survived another technology class! It was great working with all of you, I've learned so much. Good luck to everyone in your next adventures!
Monday, June 7, 2010
End of Semester...AH!
Well I've spent a large portion of today trying to figure out Assignment 4. I have a good bit of it done, but I'm still not completely getting it. I feel like I'm walking around in the dark, feeling around and finding nothing! Hope everyone else is having better luck. I'm also confused as to how the class has been stretched into the next semester, where I will be taking 2 more classes...
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Assignment 3: Interview with Robert Lindsey
I interviewed Robert Lindsey of the South Carolina State Library. He is the Web Administrator, and he was very helpful and happy to answer my questions! I was impressed with his initial answers to the basic questions, so I just responded with many thanks for his thoroughness.
E-mail contact on June 1, 2010:
Hey, Brittany. I'll do my best to answer your questions.
How and where did you hear about CMS?
The first time I can recall reading about content management systems
was when I decide to move my personal blog away from a hosted blog on
blogger.com to one on my own server. This was four or five years ago
when the Wordpress blogging platform was rising to prominence. To this day,
Wordpress offers both a hosted (on wordpress.com) and a downloadable
version of their CMS for bloggers to use. As a result of my research into
Wordpress, I discovered a plethora of other CMS packages that were free
and open source including Joomla and Drupal.
As for where I read about content management systems, I'm sure Googling
played a part. Wikipedia has a fairly comprehensive list of CMSs
And Wordpress.org, Drupal.org, and Joomla.org have extensive knowledge
bases and forums with all sorts of information about their products.
What were the library's motivations to adopt CMS for its current use (library
website or any other purpose)?
At the SC State Library, we take advantage of the user management
aspect of the Joomla CMS. Users are granted certain levels of rights to
be able to add job listings or blog postings to our site. Also, Joomla
comes in handy because we have so many pieces of content to manage on
our site. Something like 500 pieces of content, I think. We wouldn't be
able to provide as much content as we do without the help of the CMS
software.
What were the library's decision making criteria? What is the name of
CMS you are using now?
Our library uses Joomla, but I was not involved in the decision to move
the state library web site to Joomla. I inherited the site much as it
exists now. In the future we will be exploring the possibility of
migrating the site from Joomla to Drupal in order to take advantage of
some of the library-specific modules the Drupal community has created.
What are the important benefits or advantages of the CMS are you using
now over the old system or another CMS system you've used in the past?
This one sort of ties into question 2. I think the advantage of Joomla
is that it's a middle ground between the power of Drupal and the
usability of Wordpress. Drupal can be pretty daunting because you have
to build it all from the ground up adding the modules you need. And
Wordpress can get kind of bloated if you start creating a ton of static
pages and custom widgets. Joomla comes with a set of commonly used
features built in to its base installation that should be enough for
most users. And it also has a fairly good taxonomy system built in to
help you organize your pages. I've found it to be a good
middle-of-the-road solution.
How was the learning curve?
There is a learning curve with any new piece of software you try to
use. Of the three CMSs I've talked about, out of the box Wordpress is
probably the easiest to use. Then Joomla, then Drupal. But once you
understand the concepts involved in operating a CMS, the curve is less
daunting. And as I mentioned, there are large, active communities of
users attached to each of these CMSs who have written amazing
documentation and will help get you up to speed.
Hope this has helped! Feel free to follow up with me if you need. I can
talk about this stuff all day. :)
My best,
Rob
Robert Lindsey
Web Administrator
Innovation and Technology Department
South Carolina State Library
POB 11469, 1500 Senate St., Columbia, SC 29211
Phone: 803-734-5831 | Fax: 803-732-4757
rlindsey@statelibrary.sc.gov | www.statelibrary.sc.gov
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