Hi Roy,
Thanks for the kind words! It was very much a collaborative effort.
As for the preservation issue, the topic has come up although I'm not
sure it's in the same sense that you're speaking. Is there a
preservation policy for the current site that we should be aware of?
This conference site (and presumably future ones in the same vein)
exists as a Github repository, so making a backup of the entire site
would be as easy as cloning it. 2016.code4lib.org will not be going
anywhere, and next year's could be 2017.code4lib.org, etc. Regionals for
the year could even live in subdirectories (2016.code4lib.org/northwest,
etc.).
Does that answer your question?
-Shaun
On 9/14/15 11:54 AM, Roy Tennant wrote:
Kudos to the team for a great job. The "CODE" play on the "LOVE" sculpture
and Franklin in sunglasses get a special mention. However, I wonder what
this might mean for preservation? In the past, when conferences have
created a we site for an individual conference they have often ended up
disappearing eventually. Did the team consider that? Are there any measures
being put in place to assure that it won't also eventually disappear? Just
wondering, as a speaker who has mourned the passing of past conference web
sites, as if they had never happened.
Roy
On Mon, Sep 14, 2015 at 8:36 AM, Shaun Ellis <sha...@princeton.edu> wrote:
Dear Code4Lib,
We are happy to announce the official 2016 Code4Lib Conference Website!
http://2016.code4lib.org
It's important to note that the wiki is still there, and it will be used
heavily, particularly by volunteers, documentarians, and organizers of the
conference. However, several issues prompted us to create a stand-alone
conference site, which is focused towards our attendee and sponsor
audiences.
One reason for the new site is that many people have had difficulty
finding information on the wiki, exacerbated by the wiki's often slow
response time and the fact that the wiki and Drupal sites look very similar
and can lead to confusion. The wiki is an unconventional for the context,
and is not optimized for mobile, which is becoming a necessity at
conferences.
Also, we want to put our best foot forward. Sponsorships are the main way
we can keep registration costs to a minimum and offer the best possible
program. We felt it was necessary to "level up our window display" for
approaching new sponsors who may not be familiar with our community.
This does not mean that we are shunning collaboration! The site is a work
in progress and hosted on GitHub, so we encourage everyone to help make it
awesome. If you see something that should be changed or could be better,
create an issue.[1] Better yet, read up on how to make a pull request and
be a rock star![2]
[1] https://github.com/code4lib/2016.code4lib.org/issues
[2] https://github.com/code4lib/2016.code4lib.org/wiki
A few final technical details about this site experiment:
First, basic site styles and colors are built via Less, so these templates
can be easily re-used for future conferences. Also, the site uses Jekyll
and much of the content (currently Speakers, Presentations, and
Testimonials) is supplied via data files (.yml). This could be extended to
sponsors, registered attendees, etc. So, we recommend committees gather
structured data, instead of using the wiki, for anything they want to post
to the site. Furthermore, structured data will also be easier to load into
the Diebold-o-matic voting app (do you really want to make Chris Beer have
to cut and paste data in 2016?!?)! If you are on a committee that collects
data, the Website Committee will be happy to help you set up your forms.
Cheers,
Shaun Ellis, on behalf of
The 2016 Code4Lib Conference Website Committee:
Charlie Morris (Penn State)
Junior Tidal (New York City College of Technology)
Bill McMillin (Pratt Institute)
Shaun Ellis (Princeton University Library)
Eric Phetteplace (Cal College of the Arts)
Sarah Shealy (Greenville (SC) County Public Library)
Jennifer Colt (Cornell University Library)
Luke Aeschleman (UNC - Chapel Hill | Health Sciences Library)
Ryan Wick (OSU)
... with thanks to Chad Nelson for his contributions too.
--
Shaun Ellis
User Interface Developer, Digital Initiatives
Princeton University Library
609.258.1698
