Assignment Three: Option One

Introduction

Content Management Systems (CMS) are an active part of the new future of libraries.  They will bring efficiency, ease of access, ultimately lower costs, and user appreciation to each library who invests.  In reviewing websites for the multiple local public libraries and a handful of college libraries around me, I was unfortunately unable to find many who appeared to use a CMS.  I proceeded to return to previous academic librarians I had interviewed in earlier classes and reached out to them for an interview regarding their own CMS.  The librarian I had engaged with early in this program at a local college law library did not have much experience with the school’s CMS and was unable to assist me.  However, my second contact finally led to a discussion about a school’s CMS and I was provided some great information.

I reached out to Ms. Amanda McKenzie, the library director at East Georgia College and whom I’d previously communicated with during my management course.  This small state college serves primarily students and faculty while being open to the community with a borrowing policy as obligated by the state.  Most students and faculty served are a part of a two year program while some are connected to the brand new four year Biology program.  Ms. McKenzie shared that there is an archival collection; however, it does not get circulated to students or members of the community, and rarely to faculty.  Due to the small size of the college, the small size of the collections compared to larger four year universities, and the few library staff, this library is not departmentalized; certain staffs do certain things.  There is one other librarian who handles most reference questions and is at the desk almost all day.  There is also a library associate who is about to finish a master’s in industrial design and who is working toward professional standing in the library due to her experience and upcoming degree completion.  The associate handles Interlibrary Loan and most of the circulation desk.  Lastly, for full time staff, there is also a library assistant. 

The Interview

At the end of this paper is the actual email responses to my inquiry and questions about the school’s CMS.  However, for be more easily followed, I’ve broken up her responses in a question and answer form.

How and where did your library hear about CMS?          

We [the library] have had little input on our current CMS—it was all determined by our IT department at the institution level for the entire institution.

What was your motivation to adopt CMS for its current use (library website or any other purpose)? / What was your decision making criteria?  What is the name of CMS you are using now?           

The CMS that EGSC uses is called Expression Engine and it was adopted right at two years ago.  I can tell you that the reason that the institution adopted it was because the platform that they were using before required the webmaster to update all facets of our institution’s website for everyone—Expression Engine is more of a “gooey” interface that is easily trainable, so the IT department has been able to turn over department pages management to the individual departments, which was the goal.  I do not know what the old system was called, but it was very simple in design compared to Expression Engine.

What are the important benefits or advantages of CMS you are using now over the old system or another CMS system you’ve used in the past?        

I can also tell you, however, that this particular CMS does not necessarily work well for the library portion of the site and is difficult for our users to navigate—the design locks you in to particular templates that you have to choose from, and none of those templates make our types of information be able to be organized in a way that works particularly well for our users.  Our web designer is currently trying to write some new code that will allow the library portion of the site to look different from the rest of the site in order to address our specific needs, but, because we only have one web designer for the entire campus, this is taking some time.  Also, certain types of code will crash the site, such as PHP. But, the institution as a whole really likes it because it is easy enough for each department to manage and not mess up the entire website, which was the goal, and the use of templates lend the website a homogenous look, which was another goal.

How was the learning curve?

 The learning curve for my library staff with using Expression Engine was not very high, but we were all experienced in using blogs, Libguides, and other web tools.  Expression Engine works in a similar way in the back end.  And, in the HTML edit mode, you can write code very simply if you have experience with writing code, but we have not had do that yet ourselves.

Reflection

While it was encouraging to see the institution was able to find and use a CMS that would add efficiency and ease, it was disappointing to see how little input the library had in the decision process.  It was also disappointing to read how many struggles the library has with this system.  Crashing, few ways to customize the library page to fit specific needs, a single web designer for the whole school, and difficult to use for library patrons makes me sympathetic for staff and students.  The positives, however, seemed to be that the system is easy to train on and that the library staff are fairly knowledgeable in Web 2.0 technologies in general, making basic use of the site easy enough. 

Email response #1 from Ms. Amanda McKenzie:

I hope that you are doing well! I do not know of how much help I will be to you on this particular project as we have had little input on our current CMS—it was all determined by our IT department at the institution level for the entire institution. The CMS that EGSC uses is called Expression Engine and it was adopted right at two years ago. I can tell you that the reason that the institution adopted it was because the platform that they were using before required the webmaster to update all facets of our institution’s website for everyone—Expression Engine is more of a “gooey” interface that is easily trainable, so the IT department has been able to turn over department pages management to the individual departments, which was the goal. I do not know what the old system was called, but it was very simple in design compared to Expression Engine. I can also tell you, however, that this particular CMS does not necessarily work well for the library portion of the site and is difficult for our users to navigate—the design locks you in to particular templates that you have to choose from, and none of those templates make our types of information be able to be organized in a way that works particularly well for our users. Our web designer is currently trying to write some new code that will allow the library portion of the site to look different from the rest of the site in order to address our specific needs, but, because we only have one web designer for the entire campus, this is taking some time. Also, certain types of code will crash the site, such as PHP. But, the institution as a whole really likes it because it is easy enough for each department to manage and not mess up the entire website, which was the goal, and the use of templates lend the website a homogenous look, which was another goal.

Email Response #2 from Ms. Amanda McKenzie:

I don’t think I addressed the learning curve part—the learning curve for my library staff with using Expression Engine was not very high, but we were all experienced in using blogs, Libguides, and other web tools. Expression Engine works in a similar way in the back end. And, in the HTML edit mode, you can write code very simply if you have experience with writing code, but we have not had do that yet ourselves.