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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 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 “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 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 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 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.)