Illinois - Website Development

Semantic Web

2008-01-17T17:24:12Z

Article: "Semantic Web takes big step forward:
World Wide Web Consortium's SPARQL query technology published; Semantic Web could impact Google, Internet ad models, analyst says" By Paul Krill, January 15, 2008 -- http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/01/15/sparql-semantic-web_1.html

Re: Semantic Web

2008-05-12T18:07:24Z

Article: "Powerset brings the Semantic Web to Wikipedia"
By Dan Farber May 11, 2008 -- http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9938959-2.html

Powerset -- http://www.powerset.com/

RE: Re: New York Time's Best-Sellers

2009-02-25T19:36:28Z

NYTimes recently released into beta the Best Seller's API. It can be easily leveraged by an existing web site to automatically display best sellers on its pages. It is currently free of charge but requires registration.

Best Practices - Changing Domain Name?

2009-02-24T19:50:08Z

I am planning on changing our site's domain name and I'm curious about others' experiences.

Have you mapped your new domain name for a period of time, then transferred everything over using "official" 301 redirects? Or have you redirected to the new domain name immediately?

What tips do you have? Are there pitfalls I must look out for (other than the usual domain name change troubles)?

Thanks!

A Recipe for Creating a Drupal Site

2008-12-17T17:31:04Z

Matthew Saunders and his wife put together some documentation on how to build a site using Drupal. You can find it on his site ImageSpace--Nonprofits and Web 2.0:

http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/content/rapid-drupal-site-recipe

Timeline for implementing a CMS

2008-12-04T17:12:19Z

Hi, my name is Natalie Wright and I am the web content manager for the Athens Regional Library System in Georgia. We are considering a move to a CMS, and I have been researching our options. I would like to hear from other libraries who made the CMS conversion, specifically, how long did the project take? How much time was spent learning the system, designing, user-testing, and staff training? I'm trying to get a feel for the overall time investment. Of course, any other advice or tips would be appreciated too. Thanks!

RE: Semantic Web explanation

2008-11-13T22:56:25Z

lol! Love it, Bob. Next! ;)

RE: Pros and cons of hosting our own website vs contracting with a vendor

2008-11-10T20:10:37Z

cool. adding to the article now. thanks.

RE: Pros and cons of hosting our own website vs contracting with a vendor

2008-11-10T18:05:29Z

There is!

http://drupalib.interoperating.info/

There's also a listserv, drupal4lib.

Semantic Web explanation

2008-11-10T16:55:22Z

I suppose that would depend upon the flavor of semantic web being explained. The easiest would likely be to explain a "strutured semantic web" wherein web pages encode the "type" of word (rather like a MARC record) ... so you know who's an author, what's the subject, etc.

The non-structured (wherein software determines much of this from position or repetition) ... well, good luck.

RE: Pros and cons of hosting our own website vs contracting with a vendor

2008-11-09T19:40:28Z

is there a list of library websites using Drupal? if not, let's start one.

RE: Pros and cons of hosting our own website vs contracting with a vendor

2008-11-09T19:22:36Z

Hi Rose,

The best thing about hosting your own website is having complete control over the server and everything on it. The worst thing about hosting your own website is you need to worry about the server and everything on it!

Chrystie made a good suggestion with link to the open source link. I've been especially happy with Drupal. At LISHost we're now hosting at least a dozen library sites running on Drupal, and I think everyone is more than satisfied.

Setting up a site on your own server using Drupal is probably a bit too much if indeed there's no one there with real good skills in this area.

I'd be more than happy to talk with you about this, you can email me and I'd be more than happy to tell you about the pros and cons of hosting in house or elsewhere.

-Blake Carver
LISHost.org

RE: Pros and cons of hosting our own website vs contracting with a vendor

2008-11-09T19:02:38Z

this is such a great question. thanks for posting!

have you considered working with LIS host, the library web hosting service? it might be just the right solution, since it's both affordable hosting, and you can get great support and expertise for your website as well.

you might also consider using an open source website solution for the web design aspect. there's a lot of support for these options in libraryland.

good luck, and please let us know how it goes.

RE: Drupal vs Dreamweaver

2008-11-07T18:40:45Z

And here's a link to a similar question Drupal Anyone?, with some replies:

RE: Semantic Web

2008-11-07T00:51:44Z

Here's my challenge...How do I explain the Semantic Web to somebody I'm sitting next to on a plane..and make it interesting to them. So much of the writing on the subject is dry and technical. There was an article in Time? or Newsweek? (maybe the Economist?) a few months back about the SW (semantic web, not star wars;) and even that was like hiking though molasses. Any ideas or story tips?

Pros and cons of hosting our own website vs contracting with a vendor

2008-10-23T21:14:25Z

I've been the Director here for less than 6 months. Our City has given us one page on the City's website but we want/need more than that. We have our own server and good network tech support. We share fiber with our local university and school district. Since we are literally starting from scratch, I am wondering what the benefits and headaches of hosting our own website might be. We would need a web software package "for dummies" that we can teach ourselves. Although we have good network and desktop support--our "technies" are web software illiterate. Or should we just pay a vendor like Blue Host for a domain name, storage, and support? I actually have budgeted $3,000 for website development, training, and support for FY 2009 which begins Jan. 1. That $3,000 was literally a guesstimate and place holder in my budget. Comments, suggestions PLEASE!

RE: Should I give up the battle against proprietary formats?

2008-10-13T12:39:52Z

Hello Harper and welcome or welcome back to WJ

Your response was actually very timely because I have been on leave for several weeks and just now got back to checking in with WJ.

Your information about non-proprietary PDF's is very helpful and your clear discussion of appropriate forms for web publishing gives me very good guidance on how to explain my concerns about web-publoishing formats to my colleagues.

BTW, the CMS being used here is based on Drupal and is being administered by the vendor that manages the State of VT web portal (www.vermont.gov). It was very encouraging to see this venodr using an open source platform and I have started to learn more about Drupal on my own so I can better communicate with the vendor about how I may want to use the CMS.

Thanks again for your thoughtful reply.

Sheila

RE: Drupal vs Dreamweaver

2008-10-09T16:43:55Z

Warsaw Community Public Library uses Dreamweaver to maintain our site, integrated with Contribute for the content developers. Each department covers a specific area and uploads their updates directly.

We are looking to move away from it to Drupal or some other CMS.

Dreamweaver is very powerful and can do pretty much anything you want to do with a site, but it really is a developer tool, made for multiple site development and tinkering. Many (most?) Library websites don't want the constant tinkering with their layouts and templates, they want the dynamic content that goes in the page. You don't need to drop the money on training and licenses to get that anymore, you just need a good CMS. Setup your templates and layout, and let the content developers do their thing. Even if their format work is crap (a common problem) at least it will be uniform and they won't be able to break the site nearly as easily as before.

,Harper

RE: Should I give up the battle against proprietary formats?

2008-10-08T15:49:29Z

Hey Sheila,

I know the original post is a month old, but I just joined and have opinions to share!

Short answer: DON'T give up!

I agree, it seems everyone is of the opinion that resistance is futile and you should just do it the way "everyone else does." I am hear to tell you that "everyone else" most certainly does not do it that way, well, not exactly the way you describe it.

First, don't worry about PDF anymore as it is no longer a proprietary format. As of July 1, 2008 it is an ISO standard which can be implemented by anyone, making it a very viable format. Currently PDF docs can be viewed and edited in Mac, Linux, Unix and Windows.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format)

You didn't really mention the CMS system you use, but you are right, many of them talk the same way, if its not easily converted to their formats, just PDF it and put it up. But to be honest, lots of documents should be PDF for any number of reasons, and that's not a bad thing. Many organizations are required to make public documents that must be exactly like the originals. White papers, monthly/annual reports, technology plans, lots of documents have no need to be dynamic, and can be more accessible and reliable in PDF format.

Does that mean you should put everything in PDF? I think you know the answer to that. But more importantly, you mentioned putting DOC files up, which is something that should not be done, especially if it is DOCX. The Internet is built on open, and freely implementable standards, things anyone can use and deploy for free, and as you know, MS Office is not free, in any sense of the word, and the vast majority of people cannot even view DOCX, much less work with it.
Ideally, if the content producers care at all about the data they are posting and/or their audience they should want it to reach as many people as possible, with the least hassle for them as possible. Formats that require the audience to have specific software installed is not the way to do it.
If they are publishing using MS Office, shame on them for being lazy! hit File>Save As.. and change the file type to html. That's it! Worst case it warps the content to look horrible, but serves them right for using a word processor for web publishing (BIG NO NO). What will more likely happen, however, is that you now have an easy to drop in html file. Of course this is just one example of how it could easily be done.

Content provider format issues are commonly attributed to a lack of a formal submission process, but that is an issue for another time.

,Harper

_____________________________________________________
If experience was so important, we'd never have had anyone walk on the moon.
~Doug Rader

Drupal vs Dreamweaver

2008-10-07T18:35:28Z

Cobb County Public Library System will be upgrading its' website in the very near future. We are looking at Dreamweaver or Drupal for creating our new site with.

We would love to hear your recommendations,comments, observations, etc. As well as if you are currently using one, or the other, for creating and maintaining your site with.

thanks so much!