We released the latest update to the OSU Libraries Content Management System on Thursday, February 11. Here is a summary of the issues that were resolved:

Fixes

• Create Profile does not work in IE (CMS-118)
• Page Missing from CMS site tree, Error Loading Subtree on viewing Deleted files (CMS-131)
• My Profile – Bad page ID (CMS-153)
• UserDefinedForms can’t add custom rule (CMS-161)
• UserDefinedForms can’t drag form elements (CMS-162)
• ImageGallery – disable all but lightbox pop-up styles (CMS-176)
• Fix Pages that have OwnerID = 0 (CMS-178)
• NOTLOGGEDIN message on form (CMS-184)
• Can’t see some profiles (CMS-190)

Improvements

• Change Instant Message link on homepage (CMS-177)
• Change Homepage>NewsTab>Exhibits to ‘Featured Exhibits’ (CMS-181)

If you have any questions or concerns, or if you are wondering the status of a different issue, please contact us!

Thanks!

We released the latest update to the OSU Libraries Content Management System on Thursday, October 28. Here is a summary of the issues that were resolved:

Fixes

• Add Sidebar Widget works again (CMS-114)
• Fixed ability to assign edit permissions by group (CMS-117)
• Fixed some glitches in the Image Gallery pages (CMS-146,CMS-155,CMS-159)
• Fixed a condition where a user might not be able to edit a newly created page (CMS-150)

Improvements

• There are now Popular Links on the Home page (CMS-140)
• Updated the look of the blogs page (CMS-151)
• Changed some copy and links on the Home page (CMS-157,CMS-165)
• Changed the title and functionality of some of the Search options (CMS-163, CMS-169)
• Added the ability to load alternative hours on the location pages (CMS-168)
• Added the numerals to the OSUL general phone number 292-OSUL (6785) (CMS-160)

If you have any questions or concerns, or if you are wondering the status of a different issue, please contact us!

Thanks!

Content that falls into one of these categories will remain on the old website:

• digital exhibits
• staff documentation
• dynamic content (existing or candidate)
• patron/public documents in PDF or another non-web format

All other content for a public audience should have already moved from the old site to the new website/CMS. If you have yet to move your content, please do so as soon as possible.

Beginning this week, we will be archiving (taking offline) the pages that have been replaced and moving the documents mentioned above into the new ftp directory.  If you maintain content that falls into one of those categories or you need access to something that is being archived, please help us remain organized and fill out this form.

WIT and the Training Advisory Council are offering one-on-one sessions to those who need CMS training, both refreshers and first-time.  Please use the CMS training registration form to request an appointment.

Some of the items for general web site users are:

• Enhanced Main Navigation Menu by adding 5 second delay timer after hovering over a menu item
• Added OSU Libraries Toolbar to all non-homepage pages to indicate login status
• Added My Settings form to allow users to have settings for the frontend of the website
• Updated color of CMS theme
• Reformatted Contact Sidebar styles to better separate contacts
• Expand/Collapse symbols fixed (didn’t appear on some pages in FFox 3.6.2 on XP)

Some of the items for CMS content providers are:

• Can now upload image files that are smaller than 1 MB
• Can now delete profile fields
• Related pages lists sorted by title
• Non-essential form fields now sort based on user permissions
• Citation style added to style pull-down

Special thanks to all the CMS beta testers.  We really appreciated your help.

We hope you find these improvements useful. If you have any comments or issues, please let us know at http://library.osu.edu/about/contact-us/webmaster-mail

Some key points of interest:
Updated layout and design of pages that are in the Content Management System – you’ll notice that all the pages match the newly redesign homepage

• Section Background Image has been moved to the top which presents a cleaner section header area (also the Section Title will never overlap the featured image as it was previously)
• Sidebar widget headings match home page
• New design for listing links (e.g. Sidebar Navigation, RSS Feed links, Contact)
• New Global Full-Featured Search Box – can search from any page
• New Breadcrumb design

New “List” page formatting (As seen here: http://library.osu.edu/about/locations/ )

• No more bullets, much cleaner list layout
• Also the same for Departments, Collections, Exhibits, Committees, Partners, etc.

New Subject Page Layout (As seen here: http://library.osu.edu/find/subjects/political-science-resources/ )

• Easier to read list of subjects
• Entire subject line can now be clicked to expand that particular subject

New Location Page Information: (As seen here: http://library.osu.edu/about/locations/thompson-library/ )

• Includes location photo, full address, phone number, hours, embedded map with link to full map

New Library Map ( http://library.osu.edu/about/map/ )

• Map of all Library locations with ability to get directions to any library location using Google Maps
• Now includes regional library locations

Enhanced “Page Not Found” Page for broken links

• It is important to know that your links are safe and it is common for portions of the website to move to a different section.
• To assist users of our website that have outdated links, the enhanced Page Not Found page has been introduced:
• An Example:
  1. Say you have a link for the Multimedia Collections page under Digital Projects:
  2. The link should read: http://library.osu.edu/projects-initiatives/digital-projects/multimedia-collections/ (Don’t click on this yet)
  3. But for some reason or another, the link has the “digital-projects” portion missing: http://library.osu.edu/projects-initiatives/multimedia-collections/ (Go ahead and click this incorrect link)
  4. The new enhanced “Page not found” will be displayed. Now click on “Click here now for suggested pages” and the page will do a quick web site search looking for a similar page.
  5. The top result shows the correct link to the Multimedia Collections Page!

Library Web Site Search Auto-Suggest:

• This is located in the new Global Search Box under “Library Web Pages”
• Similar to Google’s auto-suggest feature, just start typing and it will search the website for pages (currently limited to search only published pages within the Content Management System and only by Title)
• Great for quickly navigation to any page if you know the Title of the page you are looking for!
• If there are no results, the search will behave like our normal web site search and covers both the new website and the old website.

As always, if you have an questions, suggestions or any other feedback, please feel free to let us know: http://library.osu.edu/about/contact-us/webmaster-mail

After several discussions with Subject Librarians and general users, we changed the way that the Carmen/Resource widgets expand and collapse: there is a plus/minus sign, a common convention in most operating systems. We also enabled the content providers to choose which widgets to begin expanded when the page loads.

We also fixed a situation where the wrong title was being used in the ‘lister’ pages. This was causing the pages to appear out of what would commonly be appreciated as order. For example, on the Collections page, Archives was under T. We hope that this won’t cause too much confusion.

These are some of the more noticeable changes, but if you come across something that is not quite what you think it should be, please let us know.

• Introduction to the CMS: 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. This class is REQUIRED in order to create pages using the CMS.
• Carmen Library Link and Subject Pages: covers 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.
• Open Lab: 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.

Registration is required for ALL classes.

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.

Here’s the training schedule for winter quarter:

• 1/5 3:30 – 5:30 p.m. – Carmen Lib Link + Subject Pages
• 1/12 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. – Intro to CMS
• 1/20 1:30 – 3:30 p.m. – Open Lab
• 1/28 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. – Intro to CMS
• 2/3 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. – Carmen Lib Link + Subject Pages
• 2/12 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. – Open Lab
• 2/17 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. – Intro to CMS
• 2/23 2:00 – 4:00 – Open Lab
• 3/4 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. – Intro to CMS
• 3/11 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. – Carmen Lib Link + Subject Pages
• 3/17 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. – Open Lab

• The Geomorphology page starts with a definition of the term.
• The Art Education page links to the Fine Arts collection and makes good use of the description field to explain why this collection is the one to visit for this subject.
• The Nutrition page makes good use of the profile.
• The Math History page includes catalog instruction information with targeted links to the catalog for examples in the Books by an Author and Books by a Subject widgets. This page also shows an experiment in progress with adding an RSS feed.

Do you have a good thing to share? Or a question about how to do you something on your subject page? Join Kathy Webb and Mary Scott for a brown bag session on subject web pages for the Libraries’ new web site. The session will be at the Thompson Library, Room 150B, on Wednesday, December 30 from 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m. We’ll talk about how to do what, and share tips, problems and ideas. Bring your problems or questions and see what ideas others might have for addressing them.

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.

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.