Web Planning for ALA

Some time ago we began the migration of all ALA web content from a CMS supported by Active Matter to one supported by Collage. And we're almost done. Last week Rob Carlson sent the following to ALA staff:

"On Monday, March 10th, we will begin "Collage-a-Rama," a two-week intensive push to get all remaining Active Matter content into Collage. Starting Monday, content on Active Matter will be frozen so that we can do a final import and deploy in Collage. We will do two "freezes," one on Monday the 10th and one on Friday the 14th (please see the calendar I sent out last week).

Content that will be frozen in Active Matter on Monday the 10th
- Advocacy Bucket
- Awards & Scholarships
- Awards Bucket
- Contacts & Questions
- Continuing Education
- ERT, IFRT, NMRT, SORT
- Events & Conferences
- Issues & Advocacy
- OIF
- OLOS
- Our Association
- Products & Publications
o Book Links
o Book Lists
o Editions
- Professional Tools
- Site Map A-Z
- SupportALA/Development Office
- Website Advisory Committee

This means that no one will be allowed to edit content in Active Matter in these sections starting Monday the 10th. If you have any urgent updates that reside in any of these areas, have them in place before 8:30 a.m. Monday the 10th. Any changes you make to content in Active Matter will be pulled into Collage during the final import and deploy. If you delete content in Active Matter, it will still appear in Collage, as the import can only pull in new and changed content. Put another way, it can't pull in content that isn't there. The original Collage import was done many months ago, so it's very likely we pulled over things you have since deleted

Once the freeze has begun, we will do final imports and deploys on the sections above as we are able. ..[snip - procedural info]....

Second Freeze

The second freeze of Active Matter content will take place on Friday, March 14. Content in this freeze includes login pages and the home page. And after PIO has entered their weekly batch of press releases on March 18th, we will convert all press releases and other PIO content. This is necessary because so many other units point to or feed content in the press releases. It all needs to move over at once, then we can find links or feeds that are no longer functioning and fix them.

Then, on Wednesday, March 19th, we will "reverse the flow" on the content services switch, so that all incoming requests (with some exceptions) will flow to the Collage web servers instead of the Active Matter web server. [snip]

As always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Rob"

As we have right along, the ALA Library will be happy to assist anyone in locating content that may become inaccessible during this final transition phase!

After the 19th, if all has gone according to plan, we should begin to see improved responsiveness. Then, the next big change will be the new site architecture and design, currently being developed following several user surveys -- see prior post for information on one of the data gathering activities.

Karen

Subtitled, "They're here, they're here!"

From Rob Carlson:

"Greetings from Philadelphia! The design concept for the ALA website is now available for review. It's up here in Philadelphia on kiosks in the Pennsylvania Convention Center, but anyone can get to the site from anywhere. The URL is http://alamockups.luminanze.com/ .

Please visit when you get a chance, and help us publicize the URL. There is a link to a survey at the end of the mockups; please be sure to complete the survey to let us know what you think. Also, please remember this step in the process is just about the graphic design. Interactivity and site architecture and other features will be coming in future iterations of the design."

Just a few days ago, managers around ALA received word of one-time funding for strategic projects. One proposal prepared by a task force of the Web Editorial Board was for developing a database to collect and organize the information on the 200+ awards ALA and its units offer each year.

The funding now in hand will address usability issues with finding information about the awards; this was one of the usability issues flagged last year by the consultants. The database as envisioned would improve ALA's ability to meet the specialized information needs of members and others seeking information on ALA's awards: description of the award, sponsoring unit, past winners, application/nominations process and criteria. It would be searchable by unit, type of award (recognition, media, etc.), name of award, year. Output from the database would be displayable on unit pages as appropriate, the ALA Awards page, ALDirect, etc.. Updating to the database would be through an intake form all the award liaisons could use. The funding is to cover the IT consultancy, database design, graphic design and initial population of the database. Ongoing development of the database would be part of award liaisons' jobs.

The Web Editorial Board reviewed a mock up of the revised way to handle news using RSS feeds for three groupings of news--ALA news, "take action," and national/international news, as discussed at the September 19 meeting. The next step is create the feeds and determine the specific mechanics of getting the news into the feeds. A task force of Rob and George, plus Jenny, Steve, and Andy was proposed.

Which lead to a discussion of the headlines. It was agreed that many of the press release titles, which are used as the headlines, have become lengthy and can be trimmed to crisper headlines, so that they can fit on one line, ideally ... two if necessary. Karen and Mark will carry this discussion to the Communications and Member Relations unit managers, who are working on improving ALA's overall communications.

The group also discussed if a similar treatment might be used for a calendar of events, but returned to an earlier proposal of embedding a calendar onto the web page, with shared responsibility for adding/gathering ALA, ALA-affiliate, and other library conferences and dates into a single datebook. Karen agreed to look into a task group to organize this change.