I mentioned that I was writing another article last week. Well I finished it and sent it in - I don’t know yet if it will be published, but I thought I’d share some of the ideas with you all.

I decided to take 2 routes. Route 1 was deciding to get someone in house to handle your library programming projects (versus a contractor) and Route 2 was how to actually handle the project once it has been offered to you. I am working on a HUGE application (as I mentioned before) at work and what better time to explain the process to others?

I went over some of the benefits of having someone in house - like the fact that they’re always there. I constantly have people stopping by my desk to ask me questions, ask for upgrades, explain what they meant, etc. This helps me with my programming and I think it helps the staff (the users) feel better about the project as a whole. With a contractor you usually only see them once in a while. We had one that only came in one a month to talk to us - and even then not everyone had time to talk with him. Most recently we had a contractor who we have never met. All communications were over the phone and only 2 or 3 people participated in those conversations even though 20 or so of the staff would have to use the application.

Why did we have contractors? Well the first one was before I learned PHP and the second one was there because our IT team (me included) could not figure out how to achieve the result we were looking for. So, even if you have a programmer in house, you may still have to hire and outside consultant, but it will be less frequently (I hope).

I talked about planning the project - meetings, flow charts, more meetings. Which is interesting because I’m reading The Accidental Library Manager right now and Rachel suggests that you have as few meetings as possible and keep the on point and on schedule. I agree with her 100% - but it just never seems to happen that way when you’re talking about changing the way people have worked for 5 or more years. Plus, you as a programmer have no idea how people have been working for the last 5 years, so you have to spend time sitting with them and listening to them until you understand what goal they need to reach - the staff of your library is now your user - I repeat that a lot.

Well I hope you all get to read the entire article, I included some stuff here that I didn’t get to fit in - so you got a sneak peak and the bonus features.

Yippee - my Intranet fits right into these 10 words to describe a successful intranet - does yours?

Cover from Official Site

It’s finally here! After talking up our Intranet here on my site (here, here, here, and here) and whenever I talked to people in person, the article is finally here.

My assistant (RayAna Park) and I were lucky enough to get the cover of this month’s issue of ONLINE Magazine and we’re so excited! I was thinking I might share snippets of code with you all throughout the year, so let me know what pieces you want more information about. I’ll admit that we did not write the object-oriented code (like John recommends) but it could still be helpful and useful for you and your library.

Lastly, if you want to learn more you can come see me at the LITA National Forum in October or Internet Librarian (also in October) I will be presenting at both conferences about our Intranet and it’s its uses.

[update 8/30/06] It has been more than 90 days so I am allowed to put the full text of the article online. Read it here. [/update]

Yipppeee!!

I just found this handy PHP Class today. It’s called WriteExcel (originally for Perl). I have had some fun with this script on our Intranet - it’s so much easier to generate reports in excel versus csv (which is what I was doing).

Give it a whirl. While you’re at it you might also want to check out the R&OS PDF Class (another script I use a lot).

First, let me say - I love Lifehacker - I just wish it wasn’t so hard to keep up with - I’m out of commission for 2 days and I have 95 new things to read about

Now what I’m really writing about.

View Rendered Source Chart is a Firefox plugin that lets your view the souce code of a page with the nesting in pretty colored boxes. Now if I could have a plugin for HTML-Kit that could do that same thing I’d be in heaven!

A lot of you expressed an interest in our Intranet redesign project when I posted about it in January - well you can soon read about it in ONLINE magazine. Marydee actually mentions it in a post on her blog - it’s a tiny mention - but it’s there.

Now don’t start screaming - the title is Intranet 2.0: Fostering Collaboration with our Homegrown Intranet - and the 2.0 is there for 2 reasons. #1 it is actually the second version of our Intranet - #2 because we use a lot of Web 2.0 technologies (blogs, wikis, RSS, etc). I hope you all enjoy the read as much as we enjoyed doing the redesign.

John Blyberg has a post about Library 2.0 Websites (worth a looksie) in which he calls for us to share our code with one another (among many other things):

We ought to be developing on open-source then turning around and making our work freely available to one another. We are libraries after all, we ought to act like it, not just in the stacks and at the circulation desks, but in the server rooms and IT departments as well.

It was this that caught my attention. I whole heartedly agree that we should be sharing our code - but my problem is that I write my code for my library and when you look at it, it may give you ideas, but I can’t see you being able to easily port my code into your library’s site without some major work - so in addition to sharing our code, we have to learn how to write sharable code - by “we” I mean “I”

Anyway, if anyone wants me to share code that we’re using on our Intranet or our site, I’d love to - just keep in mind that I don’t know if it’s in sharable condition.

For those of you web designers with Windows (sorry MAC users) this is a new tool that I just learned about that will make your life easier. As you know you have to design for the popular browser resolutions - but if you’re like me you have your resolution set as high as it will go - so this requires a plugin or a script like this one from interactivetools.com, which is what I’ve been using for the last year or so. But today Lifehacker pointed me to something so much better! It’s called Sizer and it’s a windows file that makes it so that you can resize any window to one of three sizes with the click of the mouse.

Give it a whirl, I bet you’ll love it!

I just saw a commercial for register.com - they’re advertising themselves as a complete web solution - they are trying to take work away from me They advertise that you can make your own professional web site in hours with their help. Just something I found interesting and thought I’d share since I’m watching TV and working at the same time

Wierd name, cool idea! Wufoo is a simple form maker. It’s not in beta yet, but you can play with the demo, I’m certainly going to show this to my beginning web design students.

Technorati Tags: web design, forms

I just read about phpMyLibrary.

phpMyLibrary - is a PHP MySQL Library automation application. The program consist of cataloging, circulation, and the webpac module. The programs also has an import export feature. The program strictly follow the USMARC standard for adding materials.

Features:

1. Web-based Cataloging
2. USMARC Import/Export
3. Reports Printing
4. Indexing Feature
5. Data Retrieval System
6. User Management
7. Borrowing/Loan Management
8. CDS/ISIS .iso files importing module
9. USMARC compliant

How exciting is that?? I want to help out - I want to make this the best Library Catalog out there! See the libraries that are using it.

Thanks ::schwagbag:: for pointing me to the Flickr pictures of Google Page Creator - which by the time I had read about it was in such high demand that Google isn’t letting anyone else create accounts - for now

Well I guess I’ll have to let you know what I think when they open things back up!

On our new Intranet we allow the staff to pick up to 3 RSS feeds to be published right on their homepage. We used a PHP Class called LastRSS as our parser. We were able to customize it to pull URLs out our database and to make it display things the way we wanted. I know there are other options out there, but I haven’t tried them - yet.

I just got a message from Codewalkers that there was a new PHP Class available for download - and it’s a good one!! I have written this complicated script to get RSS feeds for our site - this class would have made my life easier - so I’m sharing it with you all - in case you’re just in the starting stages of creating a feed for your site.

I know how AJAX works - meaning I’ve seen it in action, but I just found this handy guide, AJAX Matters.

AJAX Matters is an informational site about AJAX (short for “Advanced Javascripting and XML” or “Asynchronous JavaScripting and XML”) and how these technologies are applied to web development.

Now I just need to find the time to actually read this guide.

Sarven Capadisli has some great tips for hiding your email address from spammers on his site. I’m currently using number vii on the Jenkins site, and I’ve seen some of the others around - but there were some I hadn’t thought of. Thanks for the tips!

WOW! This sounds pretty darn interesting. Montastic is a website monitoring service - a free service.

Features:

• Get an email when your site goes down
• Get an email when it goes back up
• Read statuses via RSS
• Fun, easy and elegant user interface
• No unreasonable limit on the number of websites monitored

Sounds pretty handy - signed up!

I have had several requests to provide more information about the Intranet - and it is something I LOVE talking about. Which brings me to some good and — not bad — but disappointing news. The good news is that I was asked to write an article about the project - the disappointing news - for you all - is that I probably can’t write much about the project here until I’m done with the article.

I can answer some questions though.

Mahalie asked about timeframe and the people involved. I was not doing this project solo - thank goodness!! We started in August and finished in mid-December. By finished I mean finished a functioning product. We are still tweaking and adding features on a daily basis. On January 2 we went to work while everyone was out and made the entire thing live for the staff. So since January 3rd our staff has been using it - not long yet.

Mahalie also asked who the “we” were. Our server is maintained by our IT staff - but they didn’t have to do much because they already had the server set up for the Intranet - mostly they restored backups for us every time we messed things up so badly there was no turning back. My job title is Web Manager and I have one helper (a Web Assistant) who works about 20-25 hours a week with me. Between the two of us we wrote every piece of code (with the exception of the calendar) with the help of online tutorials, my favorite books (Web Database Applications with PHP & MySQL, 2nd Edition, PHP Cookbook and MySQL Cookbook), and my favorite support forums - the Devshed Forums.

That also answers David’s question about what we used - everything was custom built. David also wanted some technical details - I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to share some things like that.

I can tell you that the hardest thing we had to figure out was how to handle the wiki portion of the site. I had no idea how to keep track of all of the changes on each page - at first I thought I’d need several tables in my database - turns out I only needed one.

CREATE TABLE `pgs_content` (
`pageID` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
`title` varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
`body` longtext NOT NULL,
`user_id` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
`created` datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00',
`version` decimal(10,2) NOT NULL default '0.00',
PRIMARY KEY (`pageID`,`version`)
)

So each time a page is edited the pageID remains the same but the version is incremented by .01. That way I can make sure only the most recent version shows on the screen by default, but the other versions can be seen by clicking on version numbers on the history page. This is different from other wikis - most of the ones I’ve seen use the title as the primary key - we couldn’t have that on our Intranet because there can be several pages titled something like “General Information” or “Policies” - so I needed to use a number (the pageID).

Anyway, I’m sorry you all have to wait to hear the details - but I’ll keep giving you bits as I can. If you have a specific question feel free to ask me via email nengard (at) gmail (dot) com … if not watch here for some details and when I know more about the article I’ll share it with you all.

I just read this article on UIE Brain Sparks that states:

[I]t's pretty clear that users choose to use on-site Search when the page they're on fails them. They scan the page for trigger words. Only when they can't find them, do they turn to Search. It's their trigger words they type into the search box. (In essence, they are creating their own links to the content, primarily due to absence of the necessary links on the page.) … Usage of Search is a predictor that the scent on your pages isn't working. Fix the scent and the demand for Search goes way down.

and I can’t help but say - WHAT?

If you didn’t figure it out - I disagree with this idea. Although I do understand the point they’re trying to make - design navigation that is logical and full of “trigger words” so that you’re users can find what they need without having to depend on a search engine - I don’t agree that my users are using the search engine on my site because I have failed to give them an effective navigation system. When I know what I’m looking for I go straight to the search box on a page - when the site doesn’t have one I got to Google or Yahoo! and point their engines at the site.

Some people are searchers and some are browsers - I’m a searcher - and so are probably 1/2 of my users - so why not cater to any possible audience?

Just my 2 cents on the matter.

I have uploaded the screenshots for you all to see. They each have comments to explain what you’re looking at. View the show or the set.

I included shots of the blog, the wiki, the search engine, and noted some of the great features like - easily reporting problems to the web team - a menu that follows you everywhere, our shared calendar (powered by ExtCalendar 2) and more. If I have the time maybe I’ll go into detail on how I did things - if you’re curious - feel free to just ask

Today the library was closed - so of course I went into work. Why? Well since August I have been working on designing a new (custom) Intranet for work … and it was ready to be made live. Tomorrow when everyone comes into work they’re going to experience an intranet just for them. I’ll have to get some screenshots to share with you all - because if I do say so myself - it is totally awesome!

Every staff member logs into the Intranet and has complete control over almost every bit of content on the site. On our homepage is our Library Bulletin - a blog of my own design that will allow all of the departments to keep the other departments up to date with news and events. In the right column staff members can update their profile (which in turn updates our staff contact, emergency contact, birthday, and phone lists), access and add to the ongoing projects blog, review and add to the Intranet Links Collection - as well as our Research Links, see our online shared calendar … and so much more!

Everything is was written with PHP and MySQL - which allowed me to link a lot of the modules that I had on the old intranet together to make things easier and more efficient for everyone - it also made it so that I could keep track of who was doing what - and when.

I think this new site is going to improve work flow and communication at our library - TONS! And more important (for me at least) it was so much fun to learn how to write a blog - and a wiki - and everything else I wrote for the site. I’ll see if I can get some screenshots this week to share here.

[update] You can find screenshots, articles, screencasts, and presentations here [/update]

I remember reading about this a while ago - seems like forever - and it looks like it has finally come to pass. I’m a big user of Adobe Photoshop and a sometimes user of Dreamweaver, I haven’t heard good things about Adobe’s web page editor (I don’t even remember what it’s called) … and at first I was concerned, but when I think about it, my Dreamweaver use has been dwindling over the past year, so I don’t think it will be a big deal for me. There was an interesting post over at Timothy Gray’s blog that I think you’d like to read -I love the fact that someone from Adobe took the time to reply!

I know there are tons of these out there, but I just found this one and I really like it. I was reading Library Stuff and Steven's review of Trend Sweet Trend … which lead to to the list of top links from del.icio.us … when I saw a link to the HTML Color Code Combination Chooser.

What a fun little tool! Give it a whirl. While you're at it you can try one of these color tools:

• Color Blender
• Color Schemer
• Color Schemes Generator

We used the last one of these to help us pick colors for our new Intranet.

Looking to add a calendar of events to your site? Not sure you want to tackle the coding necessary? You should take a look at this snazzy open-source calendar we're using on our Intranet. It's called ExtCalendar 2 (check out this demo) and it requires little programming knowledge to get it up and running right out of the box (so to speak).

If you do have PHP and CSS knowledge, you can easily alter the templates to make the calendar fit into your site's design … we did … and we're very happy with the results. Give it a whirl.