Transcript Use and Future of Splash Pages for CONTENTdm Databases

The use and
future of splash
pages for
CONTENTdm
databases
Joel Marchesoni, library web master
@jmarchesoni
CONTENTdm Southern Users
Group Meeting,
May 20-21, 2014
[email protected]
Jill Ellern, system librarian
@jillern
[email protected]
Western Carolina University
Outline
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What are splash screens
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Review of the many types of splash screens
being used today
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Western Carolina University’s splash screens
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Future plans using Customizations API to
create dynamically created splash screens
What are splash screens?
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Splash screens, but we have used "collection homepage”,
“jump off pages” and recently “landing pages”
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Marketing pieces
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Entry points into the CONTENTdm collections
“Screens” because they are often more then one page
Give a taste of collection by highlight unique features
Describe or emphasize uniqueness of a particular collection within
CONTENTdm site
Place to put related information and links
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Often more than just a description
Guided Searches and in-depth information about an aspect of
collection
Why splash screens?
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Help users navigate collection
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Guided searches point them to items of interest
Interpret importance of the collection
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Connect and distinguish related collections or groups of
collections at a glance
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Branding
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Connect the generic CONTENTdm site to the institution’s website
Basic parts of a splash screens
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Individual or multiple collections perspective
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Description of the collection(s)
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Guided Searches
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Static or dynamically created
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Highlighted or exhibit of selected image(s) or unique
feature(s)
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When does a splash screen become a full web site?
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Depends upon the amount of information held about a collection
beyond the CONTENTdm database
Variations in splash screens
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Splash screen’s physical location often dictates options
available to the users
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Inside/outside CONTENTdm splash screens
Basic default elements or “out of the box” defaults
• Wide range of custom pages/scripts/styles
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Older versions of CONTENTdm allowed for more customization source
files
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Multiple collections vs individual collections
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A library’s collective knowledge of web programming
provides variations in what is presented
Disadvantages of Splash Screens
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Simple splash screens can leads user to think that they’re
seeing everything related to topic
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Often don’t contain a lot of actual content
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Often static and don’t change often
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Penalized in search engine results
Can become outdated if not “loved”
Often managed separately from collection content by
different library staff
Examples of Splash Screens
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Look around at other CONTENTdm sites
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It can help figure out what you like
What would look good for your collections and site
How you might do this research for yourself
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OCLC’s Collection of Collections
http://www.oclc.org/en-US/contentdm/collections.html
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Google search on:
“cdm/landingpage/collection/ ”
• “contentdm cdm/subject/”
• “contentdm cdm/subject/collection”
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Search for collections like your own
Review of other Libraries’ Splash Screens
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Often hard to tell how screens were created
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Is the screen an option within CONTENTdm or a local customization?
Is this something you can do with your versions of CONTENTdm?
How much html knowledge or time would it take to do it?
Is the screen static or dynamically created?
Which kind of splash screen is shown?
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subject, collection, individual, or other?
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For this presentation, we had to call the library for the really
interesting splash screens to find out more information
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I looked at many many of sites to give you this review
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There are 2000+ so I only scratched the surface
Review in Prezi
Take away from this searching
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Don’t be afraid to look around
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Out of the Box is ok
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Call and ask how they did it
Current State of Our Splash Screens
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All hosted on our campus web server, not
CONTENTdm
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Built using Dreamweaver templates
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Completely static pages
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Canned searches created from CONTENTdm and pasted in
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First using CQR and now the API
Would like these to be dynamically created but our web server
doesn’t support data retrieval
• Full website, not a splash page
• Images and concepts point to CONTENTdm
• First landing page I created
• Went back and reworked parts to fit structure of new overall design
• Second one I did, and I think it’s the best
• Template we used to build others
Future of Our Splash Screens
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Dynamic pages based on the CONTENTdm API
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Either on CONTENTdm OR
Completely outside like Andrew Bullen has done at Illinois State
Library
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Searches and navigation built from controlled vocabulary
– no need to maintain static lists
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Images could be pulled from database and scaled within
CONTENTdm for Responsive Design
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Thought the hurdle would be the poor file management
on CONTENTdm
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After doing research for our presentation I’ve found a
better way...
Landing Pages within CONTENTdm
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Landing pages in CONTENTdm are customizable
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May use the CONTENTdm header and footer OR
be a completely custom page
Possible to pull API data using PHP
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File management is still a hurdle but less so than before
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One thing to note about static vs. dynamic:
VISUALLY, THE DIFFERENCE IS INVISIBLE
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The beauty is behind the scenes
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Searches and navigation always reflect metadata
No more broken links or missing terms
The use and
future of splash
pages for
CONTENTdm
databases
Joel Marchesoni, library web master
@jmarchesoni
CONTENTdm Southern Users
Group Meeting,
May 20-21, 2014
[email protected]
Jill Ellern, system librarian
@jillern
[email protected]
Western Carolina University