The Ohio State University

What about the homepage?

We have been saving the homepage for last, mostly because we wanted our organization to focus on the content of the website and not fixate on the home page. We like to use the analogy of “writing the book before you worry about the cover”.

But here we are, we’ve got whole sections going into production, we’ve got Carmen Library Link Widgets being published in Subject pages, time to get started. Over winter quarter we are going to offer an interactive design period, inviting all website visitors: Staff, Students, Patrons, Bystanders to offer their opinions on the designs that we have up.

We are going to post our working design concepts (we’re initially shooting for at least two) and provide visitors the ability to comment on them in a public forum. We hope that this will help us gather a good number of ideas about how our home page can be a great way to start using the OSUL website.

At several points during the design project, we will be taking the suggestions and incorporating them into the concepts and inviting more feedback. This will create an iterative loop, allowing us refine our homepage several times before we are ready to go live.

We will be posting the ‘Beta’ version up during the first week of March, 2010 looking for any minor tweaks and fixes. We will be switching to the finalized home page during Spring Break, 2010.

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When do I need to have my content migrated?

We have changed our goals for having our website content migrated. Here are the phases:

1. Currently - All pages on the old site and the new are on the url library.osu.edu regardless of which server they reside on. We are using a clever script to help the whole site appear seamless: it changes the url on the old website to be library.osu.edu.
2. Spring Break 2010 - We will be changing that clever script: the old website will show it’s “real” name: nextweb.lib.ohio-state.edu. No links will be broken, but the url will not be changed to library.osu.edu.
3. Summer Break 2010 - We will be archiving the public web pages (not Staff Stuff type items) so they will not be available any longer. In other words, we are taking down public pages June 2010. Exceptions - Specialized applications, mostly database driven, will not easily move to the CMS. We will work on those on a case-by-case basis. e.g. African Lit Map, Hebrew Lexicon

Why did we change these dates?

Several things have made it hard for Content Providers to be able to enter their content. Training, getting the Production System ready, and educating users about the new Navigation Architecture. In order to allow our Content Providers to be able to focus on presenting their information the best way, we’ve changed the timeline, effectively giving us another several months.

We appreciate your efforts!

Many of you have been working very hard to meet the original deadline, and for that we are extremely grateful. You have been the brave front runners for our project in an extremely busy time for our organization. We would like to congratulate you on a job well done and hope that you feel like this has overall been a good experience. Thank you.

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We’ve been busy and so have you.
Here’s an update, without further ado…

Where We Are

We have to-date trained 78 people in our Intro to CMS classes. This is a lot of folks, but we have many more to go: there were 127 people who had ftp access to the old website and we expect about 200 content providers. If you think that you might have content that needs to be moved and haven’t signed up, please go to our registration form and find a class that works for you!

We have some great content already up: the How To Find section is very extensive, there are several subject pages up, and the jobs site has been live for several months now.

There is a bunch of new content in draft mode too. Some content providers are putting the final touches on their information, and some are scheduling the publishing to correspond with other efforts. One of the great features about the system that we’ve deployed is that they get to choose when things are put up and taken down.

Where We’re Going

First and foremost, we’d like to let you know that we are still conducting lots of training sessions: Intro to CMS, Subject Pages & Carmen Library Link, and Open Labs. We ask that you sign up so that we can gage the resources that we need. We also are happy to conduct consultations with Content Providers, both singly and in groups. If you have questions, we’d love to sit down and see if we can come up with answers.

If you have already published your content, you can help us by helping your peers. Let them know how to get trained, who they can talk to, what the system can do. If you see pages that haven’t migrated yet, contact the expert or owner of the content and encourage them to be trained. Have no idea who it belongs to? Contact us and we’ll see if we can figure it out together.

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We have added another session of the new class designed for those who will be building Subject pages on Thursday, November 19 from 9:00 am - 11:00 am. This session will cover the Carmen Library Link (CLL) editor and the connection from that system to the CMS for the creation of Subject pages using Carmen Library Link widgets. This session will also cover the changes to the CLL editor, so even those using it for a while are encouraged to attend.

All sessions are held in Room 390 of the Science and Engineering Library. Please use our sign up form to register. Space is limited to 14 participants per session.

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In November and December we continue to offer the Intro to CMS class, which covers how to use the CMS to create pages and a short portion on the navigational structure. Each session includes significant hands-on practice time. You are welcome to attend the training more than once. If you have not yet attended a CMS training session, this is where to start.

We also continue to offer the Open Lab sessions. Come with your questions and/or work in SEL 390 with helpers standing by, it’s up to you. If you have a particular question, please share it on the registration form so we can be prepared to answer it. These require registration so we can be sure to have enough helpers.

A new session in November is designed for those who will be building Subject pages. This session will cover the Carmen Library Link (CLL) editor and the connection from that system to the CMS for the creation of Subject pages using Carmen Library Link widgets. This session will also cover the changes to the CLL editor, so even those using it for a while are encouraged to attend.

All sessions are held in Room 390 of the Science and Engineering Library. Please use our sign up form to register. Space is limited to 14 participants per session.

• 10/29 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. - Intro to CMS
• 11/5 1:00 - 3:00 p.m. - Open Lab
• 11/6 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. - Carmen Lib Link + Subject Pages
• 11/10 9:30 - 11:30 a.m. - Intro to CMS
• 11/18 9:30 - 11:30 a.m. - Open Lab
• 12/2 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. - Intro to CMS
• 12/10 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. - Open Lab
• 12/15 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. - Intro to CMS
• 12/22 9:30 - 11:30 a.m. - Open Lab

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New pages are springing up each week. Recently, the Science Cafe and the Open Access Day pages were published.

Training continues, with one more Intro session on October 29th, 2-4, in SEL 390. Please register if you plan to attend. November and December training dates will be announced soon.

Some have wondered when the new homepage will be published; it will switch to the new design during winter break. This allows everyone to get through the quarter with the current design. Pages will continue to be published throughout the site whenever the content provider determines the content is ready. Please contact us if you have questions.

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In October we are offering 2 General sessions (see below for dates and times). These classes cover how to use the CMS to create pages and a short portion on the navigational structure. Each session includes significant hands-on practice time. You are welcome to attend the training more than once. If you have not yet attended a CMS training session, this is where to start. We are also offering an Open Lab in October. Come with your questions and/or work in SEL 390 with helpers standing by,it’s up to you. If you have a particular question, please share it on the registration form so we can be prepared to answer it.

All sessions are held in Room 390 of the Science and Engineering Library. Please use our sign up form to register. Space is limited to 18 participants per session.

October Sessions

• Thurs, 10/8 9:30-11:30 a.m. - Intro
• Wed, 10/14 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. - Open Lab
• Thurs, 10/29 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. - Intro

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The LIPP team would like to thank everyone who checked out the staff and faculty website preview, we got some really great feedback. That access is now closed so that we can focus on getting some of changes in place.

So far what we have in place:
• There are several sections that are in production already: the Thompson Renovation has been up for many weeks now and the AboutUs>Jobs section has already replaced the content on the old site.
• The system that provides visitors with the most current content is working great: both the old site and new site, sitting on different servers are using the same library.osu.edu url and seamlessly handling links between the two. (We worked very hard on this so that you wouldn’t notice!)
• A number of online forms have been created and are functioning well
• Most of the top two levels of navigation either have the final content or have redirects to the content on the old site

How we are going to move forward:
• Continue to add content via the CMS as providers are ready
• Make improvements to the Search Apparatus
• Improve the responsiveness of the website
• Polish the site’s visual presentation
• Address some accessibility concerns
• Leave the current home page in place for now and instead provide a preview home page for all visitors to use, which would be accessible from the current home page

So keep watching for new pages, but keep in mind that it’s your turn; we need your content! Sign up for training, call us for a consultation, enter your content and publish! See? Isn’t that easy?

Training Sign-Up
Training Materials (including site tree)
Give us your feedback

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CMS Training continues in September. Introduction to the CMS sessions will be held on 9/15 from 9:00 - 11:00 and on 9/22 from 9:30 - 11:30. On 9/29 from 1:30 - 3:30, we will hold an open lab session where those who have already attended a session to come ask questions or just work with helpers nearby. All sessions will be held in SEL 390. October sessions will be announced shortly.

All sessions require registration at http://library.osu.edu/about/departments/web-implementation-team/cms-training-registration-form/. For the open lab session, please note any questions you want help with so we can prepare. Remember, you must attend a CMS training session in order to use the CMS.

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We are so excited! We are migrating to a brand new website for the OSU Libraries, and its going to be great! We’ve heard from our content providers, our patrons and from the maintainers: They wanted a better way to get their information onto the site, a better way to find it and a better way to organize it. We have spent a lot of time and energy creating a new website that addresses these needs, and while we were at it, gave it a new, more modern look that will help visitors use the information in a friendly and consistent manner.

We’ve been keeping the visitors in mind and involved through the entire process. We’ve based our navigation on data we collected, our design on good readability principles and our architecture with finding and learning as the core goals. Usability testing already made the navigation easier and the architecture more streamlined - and we still have more testing planned to make sure we are meeting the needs of our visitors.

The technology that we’ve implemented, a Content Management System (CMS) called SilverStripe will allow us to make changes easily and efficiently - no more handing off to the ‘web person’. We can all do it ourselves, letting us make more frequent updates so you get the most accurate and up-to-date information that we can produce.

The architecture will help us communicate the things that we think that we do very well. Some of them you know about and use, some of them we haven’t done a good job of sharing. The way we’ve arranged our information, we hope that you’ll find other services and materials that will be helpful in your search for great information.

So, look for new pages (you’ll recognize them when you see them!), and please let us know what you think. You can get a start on using the website here. And finally, keep an eye on the Library Labs blog, which will feature different aspects of the website with a little more detail in the coming weeks.

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