Week/Unit 8 Readings

HTML Tutorial and CSS Tutorial

I found both of these websites extremely helpful, although at first, after reading the HTML one, I was a little bit confused by the CSS Tutorial. The more I read about CSS, the more I understood how it can help HTML (at first I thought it was a whole new thing). I think CSS is a good compliment to HTML use, especially when you want to add more character or personality to your webpage. Overall, I was glad to finally learn how to do the simple things of making a webpage that I have always wondered about.

HTML Cheatsheet
I found the HTML tutorial more helpful since it gave examples and went more in depth about how to start a web page. This would be a good sheet to use once you have read the HTML tutorial and need a quick reference back to what you read when you are building a web page.

Beyond HTML

I never heard of CMS - I am sure I have probably used it before without knowing it, but it seemed to have made common sense for GSU to switch over to CMS. The problem with GSU library websites was that it was not standardized - librarians were publishing their own work, with their own standards, and it seemed to have confused a lot of people (plus wasted a lot of time doing their own formatting). The quality and consistency of the library guides was not as professional as GSU wished it to be. To switch over to CMS solved many of these problems.

What makes CMS so useful to librarians is that "content is disconnected from the layout and design element of the page... instead of devoting time with HTML or FrontPage to create the structural or presentational display... the librarians can focus instead on identifying, creating, annotating, and selecting the content itself." So CMS does all of the formatting which gives it a standard look, and a standard for quality and consistency. Another helpful tool of CMS is that it provides just enough control - it allows creators to have more direct editorial access to their assigned components as well as acting as a "limited gatekeeper." Another interesting aspect of CMS is that once a material is used, say a book, it is available for all other assigned user to use that material. So if you already put it in once, it doesn't have to be put in again because it can be re purposed or repackaged. Finally, as the GSU library had problems with pages accidentally being deleted, CMS did not have this problem.

The library did a study on the switchover from HTML and FrontPage to CMS - and overall it was a successful switchover with most people agreeing that CMS helped unify the library's online content while also allowing user to experience ease of use.

Muddiest Point: What does the Pitt library use? And has the Pitt library experienced a switchover in the past? If so, what were their results?