Transcript Feeding the Web: Blogs as Makeshift Content

Feeding the Web: Blogs as Makeshift
Content Management Systems
Troy Swanson,
[email protected]
Library 2.0, May 2, 2007
The Meaning of Life:
Managing Content
Dewey, LC, ISBN
DNA
HTML & WWW
My Accountant
Dictionaries
Tim O’Reilly
Web 2.0 is about Control of Data
“That goes back to a major theme of
web 2.0 that people haven't yet
tweaked to. It's really about data and
who owns and controls, or gives the
best access to, a class of data.”
Tweney (2007), Wired, 4/13/2007
So, how well do you manage your Web
content?
How easily does content flow to your
Web site?
Content Management Systems
“Such systems separate the
construction and displays of Web pages
from their content. CMSs allow for
controlling the look and feel of Web
pages centrally while distributing
responsibility for the content.”
Powel & Gill (2003) Educause Quarterly #2
CMS Parts
Streamline & Automate Content Admin.
Implement Web-forms-based content
admin.
Distribute Content Management and
Control
Separate Content from Layout and
Design
Create Reusable Content Repositories
Powel & Gill (2003)
Managing Content
Blackboard
Content
Homepage
Content
Content
Content
BLOGS
Librarian’s
Brain
MV Library
Aggregator
Personal
Aggregators
Web Searches
Staff Forum
The Moraine Valley Library’s Blogs
(bringing blogs to campus)
MLS hosts our blogs
Six Different Blogs
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Library News
Information Resources
Construction News (infrequent updates)
Staff Forum
Blog Development Blog
Frankenstein News (not updating)
Purposes
Marketing & Promotion
Knowledge Base for research questions,
news, organizational history
Web posting available for nontechnical staff
Searchable research tool for students (“topic
shopping”)
Internal/external communications (staff &
news blogs)-- but be careful with names, id’s,
opinions, etc.
Research
& Search
Tips Blog
Headlines
News Blog
Headlines
Frankenstein
Blog
Headlines
RSS
“Really Simple Syndication”
RSS Resources
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“Publish and Syndicate Your News to the Web,” a workshop/tutorial
from “RSS in Government”: http://rssgov.com/rssworkshop.html
Fagan Finder’s “All About RSS”
http://www.faganfinder.com/search/rss.shtml#dis
It Really Is Really Simple: RSS for Educators
http://www.infinitethinking.org/2007/04/it-really-is-really-simple-rssfor.html
Displaying RSS in a web page
Computer code reformats (parses) content for display
You can do the coding or you can use a remote
parsing “service”
Resources
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A List of RSS parsing programs and services from “RSS in
Government” of the Utah State Library Division is available
at: http://rssgov.com/rssparsers.html
We used an older iteration of Feed2JS
(http://jade.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/feed/) from Alan Levine of
Maricopa County Community Colleges.
Search terms: “parsing rss feeds” etc.
Aggregator Page:
http://www.morainevalley.edu/LRC/blogs.htm
On-Campus Politics…
Our Goal: Decentralize creation of Web
content
Organize Content...to some degree
Administration’s (Justifiable Fear): Publication
without oversight
Need for standards, clear purpose of each
blog, clarification of responsibilities
Clarification of relationship between MLS &
MVCC (who owns content)
On-campus Politics
Clearly, document
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Definition of terms
Mission statement
How related to MVCC Core Values
Statements of purpose for each blog
Guidelines for posters
List of posters with their posting privileges
SLS agreement
Final Approval—to our surprise
(They didn’t get it...still don’t.)
Advantages of Blogs as CMS
Fairly Easy to Set Up
Allows Manipulation of Content Across
Platforms
Fairly Easy for non-techie people to use
Disadvantages of Blogs as CMS
Not a “true” CMS system
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Not full manipulation of content (can’t turn
content on or off, place by date, etc)
Limited to placing content via RSS
Use of categories sometimes awkward
Obstacles & Challenges
Building staff commitment takes time
Once in place, difficult to change
Our use does not build community in ways
that other blogs might
(They do what they do, and that’s what they
do.)