With all the commerical and open source content management systems on the market, why would a library still choose to build their own? In 2006, the University of Houston Libraries did just that. Rachel Vacek discussed their rationale and effort in Putting the Library Website in Their Hands: The Advantages and Challenges of a Homegrown Content Management System. (Note: Rachel indicated her slides will be available on rachelvacek.com, but were not there as of this writing, or I didn’t go deep enough into her site.) UHL chose to develop their own CMS primarily because they wanted a system based on their vision of what a CMS is and should do, rather than modifying someone else’s. UHL feels that the CMS should be a growing and changing system. They felt that by building their own system their staff would be able to fix problems and incorporate customer feedback more quickly. They felt that by building their…
Tag: LITAforum2008
LITA National Forum 2008: Tim Spalding: "Library 2.0 is in Danger"
The 2008 LITA National Forum opened Friday afternoon with a general opening session remarks by Tim Spalding, founder and developer, of LibraryThing.com. Tim presented What is Social Cataloging and Why Should You Care? (Blogging relatively ‘Live’ thanks to spotty ‘free’ wireless, a wired connection in my room, and a charged battery.) I have to admit that I played around with LibraryThing a bit when it first went online, but not much since. My take is that for individuals it is essentially Facebook for book readers. For libraries, however, it can provide a fresh discovery layer for legacy catalog systems. There are seven libraries using LibraryThing for Libraries, including the High Plains Library District. Tim started out with some updated statistics. LibraryThing now catalogs over 32 million books and is larger than the Library of Congress. Users can search for books using Amazon and 690 libraries. While at it’s core LibraryThing remains a personal cataloging…
hi-fi sci-fi library at the LITA National Forum
Michael Porter has posted the music video and story “behind the music” of Hi-Fi Sci-Fi Library on his blog, Libraryman. Porter will be presenting his keynote session of the same name at the 2008 LITA National Forum in Cincinnati, October 16-19. There is still time to register for the Forum; don’t miss out on Michael Porter’s session or the other keynotes, concurrent sessions, poster sessions, and networking opportunities planned. Be sure to check out the Forum Wiki to network with attendees and get local information on Cincinnati.