Jun 24th, 2007
aadl.org and drupal
ALA Annual 2007 - Sunday
Building the Next Generation Public Library Website with Drupal
John Blyberg, Darien Library, CT
Eli Neiburger, Ann Arbor District Library, MI
John Blyberg
Drupal in engineering terms and what is a public library supposed to be
Drupal is a CMS (Content Management System)
- import or create documents
- fluid management of blog entries
- effective user management
- delegation of roles
- version control
- separation of form from content (allows your web designers to design and your content people to create content)
- user participation (solicit opinions/comments/questions from the public)
- searchable
As opposed to…
- screwing around with dreamweaver
- fussing with ftp
- WTF do I do with all these files?
- Circ vs. Reference vs. Youth vs… (turf wars)
- (Battling for the unsustainable)
It’s 2007, does your website still suck?
- Unless you’re absolutely sure it doesn’t it probably does.
- Most public libraries suck
- Our websites need to be a public representation of a cohesive and comprehensive technology strategy
- Don’t bother with a new website unless you’re completely and absolutely committed to making it excellent…implementation, not necessarily equipment
What are some key components of a good PL website?
- a firm commitment to not settle
- single sign-on (very critical to customer service)
- integrated opac (users don’t care that it’s difficult for us to overcome this…all they know is that it’s difficult to use the opac and website)
- significant quantities of content generated everyday
- usefulness
- understand your community
- youth
- staff buy-in
- website is an extension of the library experience, not a resource.
Drupal is a means to an end, not the end itself
- simply installing drupal won’t make your website great.
Drupal is
- open source
- written in PHP (very accessible, easy-to-use scripting language)
- relatively low hardware requirements
- can be run on open source platforms
- free (though the time is not)
- pronounced Droopull not Droo-pal
Taxonomies
- classify content
- site organization
- cross-post stories, blog entries, etc.
- can be extended to custom nodes
Theme Engine
- separates form from content so you can change the theme without affecting the content
- closely integrated with drupal’s API
- supports multi-site or civic spaces
- completely customizable
- several templating engines available
- PHP Template, Smarty
API
- application programming interface (like a wall outlet)
- API allows you to move data back and forth seamlessly between software
- Hooks (do stuff when something happens)
- Search functions (create custom content types that are instantly searchable; use the search hook to query external databases, or just about anything…)
- Form Generation/Validation
- Create forms rapidly and validate forms easily
- Menu System
- menus are complex, even when they’re not
- menus are contextual
- manage menus easily
- api.drupal.org
Eli Neiburger
aadl.org (started project in Dec. 04 and launched in July 05)
saw Drupal as the best tool to meet their design goals
Joomla! is a serious competitor to Drupal and is very similar
When you choose a product, you want to make sure there is a vibrant community behind it so you can learn from others and share knowledge with others…makes it more sustainable
July 05 - 600 registered users
July 07 - 40,800 registered users (averaging 30-50 new users everyday)
Top five entry pages (what are people doing on the website):
- front page
- catalog start page
- rss feeds (almost a quarter of their traffic)
- card catalog image
- my account
aadl.org by the numbers
- 40,000 registered users
- 32,000 registered patrons
- 70% of active cardholders (similar to % of patrons who have provided an email)
- 4,250 content nodes
- 10, 833 post comments (at least 9500 from teens)
- 13,000 contact us comments
- 85 posting accounts (everyone in the organization is invited to contribute content as long as they have permission from their manager and take a 30-minute training session)
- 248 taxonomy terms in 7 vocabularies
- 274 patron reviews, 2092 patron tags (most on the manga materials)
- 3,473 catalog card notes, 5,931 saved cards
Materials blogs, events blog, services blog, research blog
- promoting more than just books
Contact us page (with browsable comments and responses)
- great way to let it all hang out and show everyone the great customer service you provide (growing trend in corporations to be more transparent), even to the most difficult patrons
My Account Page
- check request status
- check-out history (purely elective service)
- fine and fees
- personal card catalog
- my tags (does not replace subject headings, in addition to them)…view as list and view as cloud
- reviews and comments
- wireless devices
- request ILL
Publishing content
- can link to subject headings, titles, authors, wikipedia articles, external websites, etc.
Wrapping the Catalog
- Browser -> Drupal -> ILS
- single sign-on (easy user authentication)
- customizes your data before it goes back to the user
