WordPress is for more than blogging
When people approach me about content management systems such as Drupal and Joomla I ask if they have considered WordPress – I almost always get a blank stare. This is because WordPress has a reputation of being for blogging – and just for blogging.
I use WordPress for my book sites and for any other sites I’m asked to work on. I love using WordPress as a CMS, it’s so much less clunky than some of the other options – and doesn’t take a lot to learn (even when they upgrade and move things around). This fall I’ll be teaching a few classes on how to use WordPress for your entire library website – but for now I found this awesome list that can help you get started if you want to go it alone. The post entitled 300+ Resources to Help You Become a WordPress Expert has so many awesome resources – including a section on using WordPress as your CMS.
If you’re using WordPress for your library site already, let me know and I’ll be sure to feature you in my class 
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A good example of how WordPress can be used for things other than blogs is http://writetoreply.org, a site for commenting on public consultation documents using the (see also http://digress.it ). For more info, see the WriteToReply blog: http://writetoreply.org/actually
I also republished a range of OpenLearn OER courses on WordPress as a proof of concept – eg http://dd203-1.learningfeed.org/wpmu/ (see also a hacked approach to this: http://bavatuesdays.com/proud-spammer-of-open-university-courses/
Hi Nicole,
Great post – I’ve been selling WordPress for several different projects recently, both at work in the library, and outside, and none of which are for blogs.
One is for a library (of sorts!): http://www.funandgamestoylibrary.org.nz/ which I installed for my non-techie wife, who within a few minutes got the hang of it, and has completed all the site herself.
Especially when it comes to upgrades, WordPress really shows the rest of the world what software ought to be like.
Stuart
Stuart, that is awesome!!! Thanks for sharing
Hi Nicole,
We just converted our public high school library website from a wiki to WordPress (http://prhslibrary.com). We’ve had a lot of great feedback on it.
Thanks for the link to the great list of WordPress resources.
Pam
I agree – and I also use – gasp! – Blogger for our library website. While it’s certainly not as flex as WordPress, and required a little more monkeying on MY (personal) end than WP would have, it requires NO TECH knowledge (or even more than 5 minutes of instruction) for my STAFF to update our website constantly – without me having to do everything myself. Win-win for me!
The use of a WP styled template gave it a site feel rather than a straight blog feel, and most people have no idea that this really is just a blog.
http://www.dennispubliclibrary.org
I feel similarly about WordPress, it’s always my first suggestion when someone wants a site for any purpose because it’s so very flexible. In fact, I am the chair for the Ewing Township Web Committee, and we use WordPress to manage the municipal site. It works well with other services, such as flickr, youtube, scribd, and twitter so that those functionalities can be present, and don’t even get me started about the amazing plug in extensibility. Keep spreading the word, Nicole!
Hi,
Great post! We have been using WordPress for children podcasts for a few years now. Our staff loves it!
Hi! Loved this post. I have been working with WordPress to redesign our library’s web site — it’s just in testing now, but every day I find I am able to achieve something we do on the (expensive, largely consultant managed) public site with WordPress — if not surpass it in some aspects! If you want to take a look, it’s at http://www.splbeta.org.
Thanks!