Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides v2 - Templates and Nav
Jesse reminds me that I meant to point out that there is a Paste from
Word button in the RTE that will strip out all that microsoft nonsense.
Not quite what you were asking for (suppressing tags from the RTE--I passed
that suggestion on to the devs) but it's what we refer people to who break
their formatting accidentally with a massive paste. There's also a Paste
as Plain Text button that has a similar effect.
On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 1:32 PM, Jesse Martinez jesse.marti...@bc.edu
wrote:
I can commiserate!
The tactic we've used at our university was to use the data migration from
LGv1 to LGv2 as a means to convene guide authors and rethink
* the future overall layout of our guides (new side menu has been our
design choice but complicates preexisting three- and four-column layouts);
* their intended use (pastiche of related but independent boxes on the
guide or something with a simple flow/concise content -- it's a
philosophical discussion, for sure);
* breakdown of content (when it is appropriate to have long detailed pages
or break down into sub-pages, which have their own issues...);
* the strict use of accessibility policies (must set up strict policies
about funky colors fonts, minimize use HTML tables, content column layout
w.r.t. responsive design, etc.).
I feel our internal conversations and meetings about rethinking LibGuides
v2 with our staff have gone over well, and reiterating appropriate best
practices or suggestions whenever I field a LibGuides question have
birthed some improvements in guide construction. It's an ongoing battle, of
course!
There are some heavy-handed tactics in place here too. For instance we've
hidden the Fonts button in the guide editor using CSS.
span#cke_12 {display:none;}
This doesn't stop custom html or copy/pasting Word content (ugh) from
getting through, but it does allows us to say, nope, we're not supporting
Comic Sans!
On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 12:56 PM, Joshua Welker wel...@ucmo.edu wrote:
I lol'ed several times reading your message. I feel the pain. Well, it is
nice to know I am not alone. You are right that this in particular is an
organizational problem and not a LibGuides problem. But unfortunately it
has been an organizational problem at both of the universities where I've
worked that use LibGuides, and it sounds like it is a problem at many
other libraries. I'm not sure what it is about LibGuides that brings out
the most territorial and user-marginalizing aspects of the librarian
psyche.
Does anyone have any positive experience in dealing with this? I am on
the
verge of just manually enforcing good standards even though it will
create
a lot of enmity. LibGuides CMS has a publishing workflow feature that
would force all guide edits to be approved by me so that I could stamp
this stuff out each time it happens.
To enforce, or not to enforce, that is the question--
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of
outrageously poor usability,
Or to take arms against a sea of ugly guides,
And by forcing compliance with standards and best practices, end them?
Josh Welker
-Original Message-
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of
Will Martin
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2014 11:34 AM
To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides v2 - Templates and Nav
4. Admin controls are not very granular. With most aspects of editing
a guide, you either have the option of locking down styles and
templates completely (and oh your colleagues will howl) or allowing
everything (and oh your eyeballs will scream). Some of these things
could very well be improved in the future, and some probably will not.
This! My librarians have successfully resisted every attempt to impose
any kind of standardization. Visual guidelines? Nope. Content
guidelines? Nope. Standard system settings? Nope. Anything less than
100% free reign appears to be anathema to them.
The result, predictably, is chaos. Our guides run the gamut. We have
everything:
- Giant walls of text that no one ever reads.
- Lovingly crafted lists of obscure library sources that rarely (if
ever) bear any relation to what the patron is actually trying to do.
- A thriving ecosystem of competing labels. Is it Article Indexes,
Article Databases, just plain Databases, or something more exotic?
Depends which apex predator rules this particular neck of the jungle.
- Green text on pink backgrounds with maroon borders. Other pages in the
same guide might go with different, equally eye-twisting color schemes.
I'm not even sure how he's doing that without access to the style sheet,
but he's probably taught himself just enough HTML to mangle things in an
effort to use friendly colors.
- Some guides have three or even FOUR rows of tabs. With drop-down
submenus on most of them, naturally.
-
Re: [CODE4LIB] elsevier api program
On Jul 14, 2014, at 5:00 PM, Eric Lease Morgan emor...@nd.edu wrote: Does anybody here have any experience with the Elsevier API Program? [1] [1] Elsevier API - http://www.developers.elsevier.com/cms/ I have had tiny success with the Elsevier API Program. I first created an API key that is/was intended to be used from a particular IP address. This allowed me to sometimes download citation and abstract information from a few Elsevier-releated products using a REST-ful interface, but it did not allow me to download full text. Apparently because I was not “entitled”. Then some sort of contract was signed between the University and Elsevier. This contract was apparently returned to Elsevier, and consequently I have been able to create an access token for a text mining project as opposed to just an IP address. Using this second access token, I am able to programmatically download more articles. For example, using curl: curl -H X-ELS-APIKey: secretKey -H Accept: text/xml http://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:S0166361514000207 The resulting XML includes links to images, and I can get those like this: curl -H X-ELS-APIKey: secretKey http://api.elsevier.com/content/object/eid:1-s2.0-S0166361514000207-si2.gif?httpAccept=%2A%2F%2A Using this functionality I ought to be able to: 1. Create a rudimentary one-box, one-buton interface to search select Elsevier indexes. 2. Return the results allowing the reader to select items of interest. 3. Get the selected items and on-the-fly do text mining against the results. Yea, sure, in my copious spare time. I sincerely believe that indexers will catch on to text mining interfaces to their content. Search. Get back hundreds and hundreds of hits. Do some sort of analysis and visualization against the result. Allow people to USE the content as oppose to just get it. Has anybody else had any experience with the Elsevier API? — Eric Lease Morgan
[CODE4LIB] Job: Digital Applications Specialist at Oregon State University
Digital Applications Specialist Oregon State University Corvallis Oregon State University Libraries and Press (OSULP) seeks a collaborative, innovative and service-oriented Digital Applications Specialist to provide leadership, development and support of digital asset management, repository, publishing and preservation systems and services. In support of the OSU research enterprise and Land Grant mission, the Digital Applications Specialist writes and/or modifies code; conducts quality assurance on code contributed by other developers; designs, develops, tests, and deploys new technologies, tools, and resources to extend and enhance digital content and services; and participates in ongoing evaluations of emerging academic and library technologies. The Digital Applications Specialist provides leadership in consortia and partner collaborations and participates in the Hydra Community representing Oregon State University and Oregon Digital, supervises .5 FTE student assistants, and reports to the Head of the Center for Digital Scholarship and Services. Learn more about [Oregon State University](http://www.oregonstate.edu) and [Oregon State University Libraries and Press](http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/). To ensure full consideration, applications must be received by October 24, 2014. The full announcement, job requirements and application instructions are available at: [http://jobs.oregonstate.edu/applic ants/Central?quickFind=64755](http://jobs.oregonstate.edu/applicants/Central?q uickFind=64755) OSU is committed to a culture of civility, respect, and inclusivity. As an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer, OSU values diversity in our faculty and staff regardless of their self-identity; to that end, we particularly encourage applications from members of historically underrepresented racial/ethnic groups, individuals with disabilities, veterans, women, LGBTQ community members, and others who demonstrate the ability to help us achieve our vision of a diverse and inclusive community. Brought to you by code4lib jobs: http://jobs.code4lib.org/job/16827/ To post a new job please visit http://jobs.code4lib.org/
Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides v2 - Templates and Nav
One more great guide to share - a literary journal from a k12 in Australia:
http://home2.scotch.wa.edu.au/theraven_winter2014
For you LG admins out there - it's a series of RT content types that's
governed by an external stylesheet. They have LibGuides CMS, and this
private guide is in its own group.
*back to lurking*
On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 2:00 PM, Cindi Blyberg cindi...@gmail.com wrote:
Jesse reminds me that I meant to point out that there is a Paste from
Word button in the RTE that will strip out all that microsoft nonsense.
Not quite what you were asking for (suppressing tags from the RTE--I passed
that suggestion on to the devs) but it's what we refer people to who break
their formatting accidentally with a massive paste. There's also a Paste
as Plain Text button that has a similar effect.
On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 1:32 PM, Jesse Martinez jesse.marti...@bc.edu
wrote:
I can commiserate!
The tactic we've used at our university was to use the data migration from
LGv1 to LGv2 as a means to convene guide authors and rethink
* the future overall layout of our guides (new side menu has been our
design choice but complicates preexisting three- and four-column layouts);
* their intended use (pastiche of related but independent boxes on the
guide or something with a simple flow/concise content -- it's a
philosophical discussion, for sure);
* breakdown of content (when it is appropriate to have long detailed pages
or break down into sub-pages, which have their own issues...);
* the strict use of accessibility policies (must set up strict policies
about funky colors fonts, minimize use HTML tables, content column
layout
w.r.t. responsive design, etc.).
I feel our internal conversations and meetings about rethinking LibGuides
v2 with our staff have gone over well, and reiterating appropriate best
practices or suggestions whenever I field a LibGuides question have
birthed some improvements in guide construction. It's an ongoing battle,
of
course!
There are some heavy-handed tactics in place here too. For instance we've
hidden the Fonts button in the guide editor using CSS.
span#cke_12 {display:none;}
This doesn't stop custom html or copy/pasting Word content (ugh) from
getting through, but it does allows us to say, nope, we're not supporting
Comic Sans!
On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 12:56 PM, Joshua Welker wel...@ucmo.edu wrote:
I lol'ed several times reading your message. I feel the pain. Well, it
is
nice to know I am not alone. You are right that this in particular is an
organizational problem and not a LibGuides problem. But unfortunately it
has been an organizational problem at both of the universities where
I've
worked that use LibGuides, and it sounds like it is a problem at many
other libraries. I'm not sure what it is about LibGuides that brings out
the most territorial and user-marginalizing aspects of the librarian
psyche.
Does anyone have any positive experience in dealing with this? I am on
the
verge of just manually enforcing good standards even though it will
create
a lot of enmity. LibGuides CMS has a publishing workflow feature that
would force all guide edits to be approved by me so that I could stamp
this stuff out each time it happens.
To enforce, or not to enforce, that is the question--
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of
outrageously poor usability,
Or to take arms against a sea of ugly guides,
And by forcing compliance with standards and best practices, end them?
Josh Welker
-Original Message-
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of
Will Martin
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2014 11:34 AM
To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides v2 - Templates and Nav
4. Admin controls are not very granular. With most aspects of editing
a guide, you either have the option of locking down styles and
templates completely (and oh your colleagues will howl) or allowing
everything (and oh your eyeballs will scream). Some of these things
could very well be improved in the future, and some probably will not.
This! My librarians have successfully resisted every attempt to impose
any kind of standardization. Visual guidelines? Nope. Content
guidelines? Nope. Standard system settings? Nope. Anything less than
100% free reign appears to be anathema to them.
The result, predictably, is chaos. Our guides run the gamut. We have
everything:
- Giant walls of text that no one ever reads.
- Lovingly crafted lists of obscure library sources that rarely (if
ever) bear any relation to what the patron is actually trying to do.
- A thriving ecosystem of competing labels. Is it Article Indexes,
Article Databases, just plain Databases, or something more exotic?
Depends which apex predator rules this particular neck of the jungle.
- Green text on pink backgrounds
[CODE4LIB] GIS Librarian Position at the University of Miami Libraries
GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS (GIS) SERVICES LIBRARIAN: The University of Miami Libraries seeks nominations and applications for a Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) Services Librarian, to serve as a key member of our emerging digital scholarship program. The GIS Services Librarian will build and curate our growing spatial data collection, and review and recommend the acquisition of relevant application software programs. The GIS Librarian will collaborate with and provide services to various schools and departments across UM in support of their geospatial research needs. The Librarian will work directly with liaison librarians in the Richter Library’s Education and Outreach Department and the UM subject specialty libraries (architecture, business, marine and atmospheric sciences, music) as well as a range of staff involved in metadata, web applications, emerging technologies and digital scholarship support throughout the Library organization. The GIS Services Librarian will liaise with UM staff in related academic technology support roles, especially Academic Technology and the Center for Computational Sciences. For additional information please see the full job description: https://library.miami.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Geospatial-Information-Systems-GIS-Services-Librarian1.pdf -- Andrew Darby Head, Web Emerging Technologies University of Miami Libraries
[CODE4LIB] Job: Information Retrieval Researcher at H5
Information Retrieval Researcher H5 San Francisco H5's Professional Services Group is looking to add Information Retrieval Researchers to our cross-functional project teams. The core responsibilities of the Information Retrieval Researcher include self-directed research, documentation and presentation of research results, and data analysis. Responsibilities: * Rapidly developing an understanding of new subject matter related to complex litigation via independent research and team interaction * Construct strategic search queries in large corpora of electronic data to locate targeted subject matter * Creatively solve information retrieval challenges using proven methodologies and self-generated ideas * Synthesizing large amounts of information from a variety of sources (case materials, client direction and feedback, internet sources) * Formulate and test hypotheses in a coherent and organized fashion within large corpora of electronic data * Presenting research results to a project team, discerning crucial information from less important details, and accurately depicting data trends and inconsistencies * Working in a fast-paced environment to meet client deadlines both collaboratively and autonomously * Undertaking and successfully concluding projects with minimal supervision while providing updates and progress reports to the project team Competencies: * Ability to approach research conceptually and creatively * Ability to synthesize information effectively and formally document /report findings * Investigatory skills * Superior oral and written communication skills * Aptitude for learning new technologies and processes * Sharp eye for detail and a practiced sense of order and organization * Ability to meet deadlines while balancing competing priorities * Ability to work independently and collaborate effectively to a team effort * Comfort working in a fast-paced environment * Solid competency in a PC/Windows environment using Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, and Outlook) Qualifications: * Experience with research, data analysis, text analysis, linguistic analysis * Knowledge or experience with the US legal system * 2+ years experience in a professional/ business environment * Experience with Concordance and similar legal search platforms a plus Brought to you by code4lib jobs: http://jobs.code4lib.org/job/16833/ To post a new job please visit http://jobs.code4lib.org/
Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides v2 - Templates and Nav
Hey there, Over the last couple of years we've begun addressing many of these organizational web content issues many libraries share, and while there's still a lot to do, I think we are on a good path. We try not to be draconian but we try to be up to par. There are a few parts: 1.) You need an organizational culture which respects the Web Services Person, the overall Web Services, and external Best Practices Maintaining currency and doing user research is part of a web services librarian's description. Just as the library expects expertise from a subject specialist and respects that person's authority in the topic, the library must expect the same from its web team and, in many ways, defer certain decision making. Libraries that have web teams need to put them in a position to, first, aspire to expertise--this means ample time to experiment and learn and do usability studies--and then in a position to determine best practices. Libraries that treat their site and web content as ancillary are going to struggle to have usable and useful web services in the first place. Additionally, other people who do web stuff better have already figured out how users actually use the web. Most of this you don't need to figure out for yourself. Optimize your services for your own users, but adopt the best practices that are already out there and learn from research that has already been done. Realize that research HAS been done, and such research is just as laudable and worthy of consideration as research in any other field. 2.) Establish Axioms that Force Better Practices We decided a year or so ago that all future projects were going to be mobile first, accessible, and chase after a 2000 speed index. This forces certain decisions: we design for and write for mobile first - there's not really much screen real estate, so a.) there can't be a ton of stuff there, b.) it has to be readable and tappable [big font, big buttons], c.) we can't write ten paragraphs if we can say it in two or three. Additionally, we made everyone aware of Section 508 and WCAG 2.0 A, and so we aspire to meet those basic recommendations: y'know, alt tags for everything, transcripts for media. The 2000 speed index is roughly a 2 second load time, so we say that, hey, images can't be crazy big. It's actually pretty generous. 3.) Set some freaking guidelines Create an online media committee who agree on and agree to enforce content policies. Libraries as an organization with a web presence should be just as on point as any other organization with a web presence. Users notice when content is *bad* or inconsistent, and they don't like it when they have to check the URL to see whether they're still on XYZ site. Users who come to distrust the quality or usability of a library's content will apply that same reasoning to the rest of its services. Having designs that pop with a great color scheme are super, but users really don't care. They really don't. They just want to get the content they came for - and leave. Libraries want to be perceived as professional, but libraries without content policies won't be - even small ones. They don't have to be overwhelming. Set some simple axioms, agree on adhering to federal / state level accessibility guidelines, inherit your parent organization's style guide / content policies [if they exist], and then make a few other simple rules that don't suck. 4.) Enforce those freaking guidelines This is easier when the library actually has a web team, but designate someone as a Content Sheriff and give that person the authority to *unpublish* content that doesn't meet XYZ guidelines. There will be animosity, at first, but it's for the betterment of the organization as a whole - and once people get used to the fact that *bad content will be unpublished*, they'll write good content to avoid the annoyance. This is where editorial workflow should be an option. Prevent bad content from getting published in the first place. An *awesome* guide created by an expert science subject specialist that violates your accessibility guidelines shouldn't be publishable. If you have control over your CMS (like WordPress), you can make it so that these fields are required before the content can go live. In the case of LibGuides, establish a simple and non-jerky system of buddy review so that a second pair of eyes can confirm that, yeah, XYZ guidelines are met. -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of King, Emily Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2014 1:19 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides v2 - Templates and Nav At my previous institution, I struggled with the same issues as you (and probably most libguides administrators that have a large number of people creating guides). The only really positive experience that I have had was a fairly time consuming one. Every year, I sat down with
Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides v2 - Templates and Nav
The web content workflow and governance issues that were brought up are
really important. I would love to discuss them at excruciating length.
But content ownership conundrums and the frustrations of WYSIWYG editors
are broader issues that can be usefully taken up in other threads.
I de-lurked here because I saw an opening to discuss LibGuides with
other people who have a stake in it, especially as a lightweight CMS. I
think Josh's description of its limitations was very good. His feature
propositions, including that of a curated plugin system, were even
better. I have a question though: Why doesn't it exist already?
LibGuides is limited, though the v2 API looks promising for client-side
stuff. We should be talking with Springshare about improving workflows
for admins -- such as (an example I came across today) being able to
upload more than one image at a time. And, in the meantime, there's
other stuff we can do now: community docs, templates, themes, best
practices, etc. I've been surprised by the lack of this material,
considering how widely LibGuides is implemented.
Does anyone else find this stuff interesting?
Alex
On 09/25/2014 05:48 PM, Cindi Blyberg wrote:
One more great guide to share - a literary journal from a k12 in Australia:
http://home2.scotch.wa.edu.au/theraven_winter2014
For you LG admins out there - it's a series of RT content types that's
governed by an external stylesheet. They have LibGuides CMS, and this
private guide is in its own group.
*back to lurking*
On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 2:00 PM, Cindi Blyberg cindi...@gmail.com wrote:
Jesse reminds me that I meant to point out that there is a Paste from
Word button in the RTE that will strip out all that microsoft nonsense.
Not quite what you were asking for (suppressing tags from the RTE--I passed
that suggestion on to the devs) but it's what we refer people to who break
their formatting accidentally with a massive paste. There's also a Paste
as Plain Text button that has a similar effect.
On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 1:32 PM, Jesse Martinez jesse.marti...@bc.edu
wrote:
I can commiserate!
The tactic we've used at our university was to use the data migration from
LGv1 to LGv2 as a means to convene guide authors and rethink
* the future overall layout of our guides (new side menu has been our
design choice but complicates preexisting three- and four-column layouts);
* their intended use (pastiche of related but independent boxes on the
guide or something with a simple flow/concise content -- it's a
philosophical discussion, for sure);
* breakdown of content (when it is appropriate to have long detailed pages
or break down into sub-pages, which have their own issues...);
* the strict use of accessibility policies (must set up strict policies
about funky colors fonts, minimize use HTML tables, content column
layout
w.r.t. responsive design, etc.).
I feel our internal conversations and meetings about rethinking LibGuides
v2 with our staff have gone over well, and reiterating appropriate best
practices or suggestions whenever I field a LibGuides question have
birthed some improvements in guide construction. It's an ongoing battle,
of
course!
There are some heavy-handed tactics in place here too. For instance we've
hidden the Fonts button in the guide editor using CSS.
span#cke_12 {display:none;}
This doesn't stop custom html or copy/pasting Word content (ugh) from
getting through, but it does allows us to say, nope, we're not supporting
Comic Sans!
On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 12:56 PM, Joshua Welker wel...@ucmo.edu wrote:
I lol'ed several times reading your message. I feel the pain. Well, it
is
nice to know I am not alone. You are right that this in particular is an
organizational problem and not a LibGuides problem. But unfortunately it
has been an organizational problem at both of the universities where
I've
worked that use LibGuides, and it sounds like it is a problem at many
other libraries. I'm not sure what it is about LibGuides that brings out
the most territorial and user-marginalizing aspects of the librarian
psyche.
Does anyone have any positive experience in dealing with this? I am on
the
verge of just manually enforcing good standards even though it will
create
a lot of enmity. LibGuides CMS has a publishing workflow feature that
would force all guide edits to be approved by me so that I could stamp
this stuff out each time it happens.
To enforce, or not to enforce, that is the question--
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of
outrageously poor usability,
Or to take arms against a sea of ugly guides,
And by forcing compliance with standards and best practices, end them?
Josh Welker
-Original Message-
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of
Will Martin
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2014 11:34 AM
To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides v2 - Templates and Nav
4. Admin controls are not very
[CODE4LIB] Job: Electronic Resources and Acquisitions Support Specialist at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Electronic Resources and Acquisitions Support Specialist University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign Urbana This position has been reopened. If you applied earlier this year and are still interested, please reapply. **Position Available**: The expected start date is as soon as possible after the closing date. This is a 100%, twelve-month, academic professional position. **Responsibilities**: The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign seeks an innovative and knowledgeable professional to support electronic resources and acquisitions functions at the University Library. This is an Academic Professional position for a librarian who possesses the requisite skills, experience, and/or demonstrated knowledge from course work. The Support Specialist will work in the Acquisitions unit within the Technical Services Division of the Library. The successful candidate will work in a team environment with those division faculty and staff responsible for the management of electronic resources and acquisitions work. The position will assist in the maintenance of our OpenURL link resolver, SFX, in troubleshooting access problems, and will also assist in managing the reports and documentation necessary to support electronic resources and acquisitions work. This position reports to the Head of Acquisitions and works closely with the Electronic Resources Li! brarian. Qualifications: **Required**: Master's degree in library or information science or combination of other advanced degree and relevant experience; A minimum of two years of library work experience and significant familiarity with library applications and procedures for electronic resource management, OpenURL link resolvers, and integrated library systems modules used in technical services; Demonstrated understanding of electronic resources, including awareness of issues from the perspective of vendors, publishers, and aggregators and that relate to platforms and licensing; Ability to communicate and work well with colleagues across units and ability to understand variant perspectives on shared work; Strong interpersonal, analytical, oral and written communication skills, and customer service skills. See [https://jobs.illinois.edu/search-jobs/job- details?jobID=4566](https://jobs.illinois.edu/search-jobs/job- details?jobID=45661) for **Preferred**. **To Apply**: To ensure full consideration, please complete your candidate profile at https://jobs.illinois.edu and upload a letter of interest, resume, and contact information including email addresses for three professional references. Applications not submitted through this website will not be considered. For questions, please call: 217-333-8169. **Deadline**: In order to ensure full consideration we urge candidates to submit application materials on or before October 24, 2014 _Illinois is an Affirmative Action /Equal Opportunity Employer and welcomes individuals with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and ideas who embrace and value diversity and inclusivity. www.inclusiveillinois.illinois.edu_ Brought to you by code4lib jobs: http://jobs.code4lib.org/job/16838/ To post a new job please visit http://jobs.code4lib.org/
Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides v2 - Templates and Nav
| Does anyone else find this stuff interesting?
Absolutely.
I have a slew of jQuery scripts I've put together to add in small bits of
(missing) functionality here-and-there, mostly based on suggestions/trouble
tickets from staff. These are far from plugins, though. Nonetheless, I
should go about sharing these scripts someday...
And I'd be very interested to see other institutions' stab at best
practices for LibGuides.
FWIW, I've been a regular on the SpringShare internal forums Lounge and
I've made a number suggestions on how to improve LibGuides functionality
workflow support. There is a good community on that forum and my
suggestions tend to receive prompt attention.
On Thu, Sep 25, 2014 at 1:07 PM, Alex Armstrong aarmstr...@acg.edu wrote:
The web content workflow and governance issues that were brought up are
really important. I would love to discuss them at excruciating length. But
content ownership conundrums and the frustrations of WYSIWYG editors are
broader issues that can be usefully taken up in other threads.
I de-lurked here because I saw an opening to discuss LibGuides with other
people who have a stake in it, especially as a lightweight CMS. I think
Josh's description of its limitations was very good. His feature
propositions, including that of a curated plugin system, were even better.
I have a question though: Why doesn't it exist already?
LibGuides is limited, though the v2 API looks promising for client-side
stuff. We should be talking with Springshare about improving workflows for
admins -- such as (an example I came across today) being able to upload
more than one image at a time. And, in the meantime, there's other stuff we
can do now: community docs, templates, themes, best practices, etc. I've
been surprised by the lack of this material, considering how widely
LibGuides is implemented.
Does anyone else find this stuff interesting?
Alex
On 09/25/2014 05:48 PM, Cindi Blyberg wrote:
One more great guide to share - a literary journal from a k12 in
Australia:
http://home2.scotch.wa.edu.au/theraven_winter2014
For you LG admins out there - it's a series of RT content types that's
governed by an external stylesheet. They have LibGuides CMS, and this
private guide is in its own group.
*back to lurking*
On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 2:00 PM, Cindi Blyberg cindi...@gmail.com
wrote:
Jesse reminds me that I meant to point out that there is a Paste from
Word button in the RTE that will strip out all that microsoft nonsense.
Not quite what you were asking for (suppressing tags from the RTE--I
passed
that suggestion on to the devs) but it's what we refer people to who
break
their formatting accidentally with a massive paste. There's also a
Paste
as Plain Text button that has a similar effect.
On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 1:32 PM, Jesse Martinez jesse.marti...@bc.edu
wrote:
I can commiserate!
The tactic we've used at our university was to use the data migration
from
LGv1 to LGv2 as a means to convene guide authors and rethink
* the future overall layout of our guides (new side menu has been our
design choice but complicates preexisting three- and four-column
layouts);
* their intended use (pastiche of related but independent boxes on the
guide or something with a simple flow/concise content -- it's a
philosophical discussion, for sure);
* breakdown of content (when it is appropriate to have long detailed
pages
or break down into sub-pages, which have their own issues...);
* the strict use of accessibility policies (must set up strict policies
about funky colors fonts, minimize use HTML tables, content column
layout
w.r.t. responsive design, etc.).
I feel our internal conversations and meetings about rethinking
LibGuides
v2 with our staff have gone over well, and reiterating appropriate best
practices or suggestions whenever I field a LibGuides question have
birthed some improvements in guide construction. It's an ongoing battle,
of
course!
There are some heavy-handed tactics in place here too. For instance
we've
hidden the Fonts button in the guide editor using CSS.
span#cke_12 {display:none;}
This doesn't stop custom html or copy/pasting Word content (ugh) from
getting through, but it does allows us to say, nope, we're not
supporting
Comic Sans!
On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 12:56 PM, Joshua Welker wel...@ucmo.edu
wrote:
I lol'ed several times reading your message. I feel the pain. Well, it
is
nice to know I am not alone. You are right that this in particular is
an
organizational problem and not a LibGuides problem. But unfortunately
it
has been an organizational problem at both of the universities where
I've
worked that use LibGuides, and it sounds like it is a problem at many
other libraries. I'm not sure what it is about LibGuides that brings
out
the most territorial and user-marginalizing aspects of the librarian
psyche.
Does anyone have any positive experience in dealing with this?
Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides v2 - Templates and Nav
Sir, you just won the internets. Or at least the library internets. I am going to try to get library administrators here on board with the things you mentioned. Josh Welker -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Michael Schofield Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2014 1:20 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides v2 - Templates and Nav Hey there, Over the last couple of years we've begun addressing many of these organizational web content issues many libraries share, and while there's still a lot to do, I think we are on a good path. We try not to be draconian but we try to be up to par. There are a few parts: 1.) You need an organizational culture which respects the Web Services Person, the overall Web Services, and external Best Practices Maintaining currency and doing user research is part of a web services librarian's description. Just as the library expects expertise from a subject specialist and respects that person's authority in the topic, the library must expect the same from its web team and, in many ways, defer certain decision making. Libraries that have web teams need to put them in a position to, first, aspire to expertise--this means ample time to experiment and learn and do usability studies--and then in a position to determine best practices. Libraries that treat their site and web content as ancillary are going to struggle to have usable and useful web services in the first place. Additionally, other people who do web stuff better have already figured out how users actually use the web. Most of this you don't need to figure out for yourself. Optimize your services for your own users, but adopt the best practices that are already out there and learn from research that has already been done. Realize that research HAS been done, and such research is just as laudable and worthy of consideration as research in any other field. 2.) Establish Axioms that Force Better Practices We decided a year or so ago that all future projects were going to be mobile first, accessible, and chase after a 2000 speed index. This forces certain decisions: we design for and write for mobile first - there's not really much screen real estate, so a.) there can't be a ton of stuff there, b.) it has to be readable and tappable [big font, big buttons], c.) we can't write ten paragraphs if we can say it in two or three. Additionally, we made everyone aware of Section 508 and WCAG 2.0 A, and so we aspire to meet those basic recommendations: y'know, alt tags for everything, transcripts for media. The 2000 speed index is roughly a 2 second load time, so we say that, hey, images can't be crazy big. It's actually pretty generous. 3.) Set some freaking guidelines Create an online media committee who agree on and agree to enforce content policies. Libraries as an organization with a web presence should be just as on point as any other organization with a web presence. Users notice when content is *bad* or inconsistent, and they don't like it when they have to check the URL to see whether they're still on XYZ site. Users who come to distrust the quality or usability of a library's content will apply that same reasoning to the rest of its services. Having designs that pop with a great color scheme are super, but users really don't care. They really don't. They just want to get the content they came for - and leave. Libraries want to be perceived as professional, but libraries without content policies won't be - even small ones. They don't have to be overwhelming. Set some simple axioms, agree on adhering to federal / state level accessibility guidelines, inherit your parent organization's style guide / content policies [if they exist], and then make a few other simple rules that don't suck. 4.) Enforce those freaking guidelines This is easier when the library actually has a web team, but designate someone as a Content Sheriff and give that person the authority to *unpublish* content that doesn't meet XYZ guidelines. There will be animosity, at first, but it's for the betterment of the organization as a whole - and once people get used to the fact that *bad content will be unpublished*, they'll write good content to avoid the annoyance. This is where editorial workflow should be an option. Prevent bad content from getting published in the first place. An *awesome* guide created by an expert science subject specialist that violates your accessibility guidelines shouldn't be publishable. If you have control over your CMS (like WordPress), you can make it so that these fields are required before the content can go live. In the case of LibGuides, establish a simple and non-jerky system of buddy review so that a second pair of eyes can confirm that, yeah, XYZ guidelines are met. -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of King, Emily Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2014 1:19 PM
Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides v2 - Templates and Nav
Hi Alex,
That's a great question! I would surmise that a plug-in system and other
advanced tech features don't exist yet for a couple of reasons. First,
we're a small company. We have eight products and a small development
team; right now the priority is getting out v2 apps. Second, we have more
than 4500 LibGuides customers, and some have more than one site. The vast,
vast majority of those folks use LibGuides out of the box, with a few color
customizations that they accomplish with the UI (or a lot, as you've
seen...). Some folks are advanced enough to figure out and alter the
default CSS and put their customizations in the Custom JS/CSS field. Then
there is this group. :) There are a few LibGuides admins who do
customization at this group's level who aren't on this list (or are you? :)
).
I'd also second the Lounge (springsharelounge.com) as a good group. There's
an academic libraries group there, which is quite active.
Cheers.
On Thu, Sep 25, 2014 at 1:07 PM, Alex Armstrong aarmstr...@acg.edu wrote:
The web content workflow and governance issues that were brought up are
really important. I would love to discuss them at excruciating length. But
content ownership conundrums and the frustrations of WYSIWYG editors are
broader issues that can be usefully taken up in other threads.
I de-lurked here because I saw an opening to discuss LibGuides with other
people who have a stake in it, especially as a lightweight CMS. I think
Josh's description of its limitations was very good. His feature
propositions, including that of a curated plugin system, were even better.
I have a question though: Why doesn't it exist already?
LibGuides is limited, though the v2 API looks promising for client-side
stuff. We should be talking with Springshare about improving workflows for
admins -- such as (an example I came across today) being able to upload
more than one image at a time. And, in the meantime, there's other stuff we
can do now: community docs, templates, themes, best practices, etc. I've
been surprised by the lack of this material, considering how widely
LibGuides is implemented.
Does anyone else find this stuff interesting?
Alex
On 09/25/2014 05:48 PM, Cindi Blyberg wrote:
One more great guide to share - a literary journal from a k12 in
Australia:
http://home2.scotch.wa.edu.au/theraven_winter2014
For you LG admins out there - it's a series of RT content types that's
governed by an external stylesheet. They have LibGuides CMS, and this
private guide is in its own group.
*back to lurking*
On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 2:00 PM, Cindi Blyberg cindi...@gmail.com
wrote:
Jesse reminds me that I meant to point out that there is a Paste from
Word button in the RTE that will strip out all that microsoft nonsense.
Not quite what you were asking for (suppressing tags from the RTE--I
passed
that suggestion on to the devs) but it's what we refer people to who
break
their formatting accidentally with a massive paste. There's also a
Paste
as Plain Text button that has a similar effect.
On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 1:32 PM, Jesse Martinez jesse.marti...@bc.edu
wrote:
I can commiserate!
The tactic we've used at our university was to use the data migration
from
LGv1 to LGv2 as a means to convene guide authors and rethink
* the future overall layout of our guides (new side menu has been our
design choice but complicates preexisting three- and four-column
layouts);
* their intended use (pastiche of related but independent boxes on the
guide or something with a simple flow/concise content -- it's a
philosophical discussion, for sure);
* breakdown of content (when it is appropriate to have long detailed
pages
or break down into sub-pages, which have their own issues...);
* the strict use of accessibility policies (must set up strict policies
about funky colors fonts, minimize use HTML tables, content column
layout
w.r.t. responsive design, etc.).
I feel our internal conversations and meetings about rethinking
LibGuides
v2 with our staff have gone over well, and reiterating appropriate best
practices or suggestions whenever I field a LibGuides question have
birthed some improvements in guide construction. It's an ongoing battle,
of
course!
There are some heavy-handed tactics in place here too. For instance
we've
hidden the Fonts button in the guide editor using CSS.
span#cke_12 {display:none;}
This doesn't stop custom html or copy/pasting Word content (ugh) from
getting through, but it does allows us to say, nope, we're not
supporting
Comic Sans!
On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 12:56 PM, Joshua Welker wel...@ucmo.edu
wrote:
I lol'ed several times reading your message. I feel the pain. Well, it
is
nice to know I am not alone. You are right that this in particular is
an
organizational problem and not a LibGuides problem. But unfortunately
it
has been an organizational problem at both of the universities where
I've
worked that use
Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides v2 - Templates and Nav
OK, one more tidbit on this. I was chatting with Slaven, our CEO, and told him of the chatter on the list and the idea of a community-developed, curated set of plug-ins, along with templates, themes, etc., and he's totally excited about this idea. He (and I!) would love it if you all would chime in on this and other ideas on the Lounge so that we can figure out how to make them happen. We're going to set up a group on the Lounge for techie admins, but our Lounge admin is in the midst of moving so it might take a day or two. Thanks for all this great feedback, everyone! We are listening, and want to make these things happen. -cb On Thu, Sep 25, 2014 at 3:22 PM, Cindi Blyberg cindi...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Alex, That's a great question! I would surmise that a plug-in system and other advanced tech features don't exist yet for a couple of reasons. First, we're a small company. We have eight products and a small development team; right now the priority is getting out v2 apps. Second, we have more than 4500 LibGuides customers, and some have more than one site. The vast, vast majority of those folks use LibGuides out of the box, with a few color customizations that they accomplish with the UI (or a lot, as you've seen...). Some folks are advanced enough to figure out and alter the default CSS and put their customizations in the Custom JS/CSS field. Then there is this group. :) There are a few LibGuides admins who do customization at this group's level who aren't on this list (or are you? :) ). I'd also second the Lounge (springsharelounge.com) as a good group. There's an academic libraries group there, which is quite active. Cheers. On Thu, Sep 25, 2014 at 1:07 PM, Alex Armstrong aarmstr...@acg.edu wrote: The web content workflow and governance issues that were brought up are really important. I would love to discuss them at excruciating length. But content ownership conundrums and the frustrations of WYSIWYG editors are broader issues that can be usefully taken up in other threads. I de-lurked here because I saw an opening to discuss LibGuides with other people who have a stake in it, especially as a lightweight CMS. I think Josh's description of its limitations was very good. His feature propositions, including that of a curated plugin system, were even better. I have a question though: Why doesn't it exist already? LibGuides is limited, though the v2 API looks promising for client-side stuff. We should be talking with Springshare about improving workflows for admins -- such as (an example I came across today) being able to upload more than one image at a time. And, in the meantime, there's other stuff we can do now: community docs, templates, themes, best practices, etc. I've been surprised by the lack of this material, considering how widely LibGuides is implemented. Does anyone else find this stuff interesting? Alex On 09/25/2014 05:48 PM, Cindi Blyberg wrote: One more great guide to share - a literary journal from a k12 in Australia: http://home2.scotch.wa.edu.au/theraven_winter2014 For you LG admins out there - it's a series of RT content types that's governed by an external stylesheet. They have LibGuides CMS, and this private guide is in its own group. *back to lurking* On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 2:00 PM, Cindi Blyberg cindi...@gmail.com wrote: Jesse reminds me that I meant to point out that there is a Paste from Word button in the RTE that will strip out all that microsoft nonsense. Not quite what you were asking for (suppressing tags from the RTE--I passed that suggestion on to the devs) but it's what we refer people to who break their formatting accidentally with a massive paste. There's also a Paste as Plain Text button that has a similar effect. On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 1:32 PM, Jesse Martinez jesse.marti...@bc.edu wrote: I can commiserate! The tactic we've used at our university was to use the data migration from LGv1 to LGv2 as a means to convene guide authors and rethink * the future overall layout of our guides (new side menu has been our design choice but complicates preexisting three- and four-column layouts); * their intended use (pastiche of related but independent boxes on the guide or something with a simple flow/concise content -- it's a philosophical discussion, for sure); * breakdown of content (when it is appropriate to have long detailed pages or break down into sub-pages, which have their own issues...); * the strict use of accessibility policies (must set up strict policies about funky colors fonts, minimize use HTML tables, content column layout w.r.t. responsive design, etc.). I feel our internal conversations and meetings about rethinking LibGuides v2 with our staff have gone over well, and reiterating appropriate best practices or suggestions whenever I field a LibGuides question have birthed some improvements in guide construction. It's an ongoing battle,
[CODE4LIB] From Record-Bound to Boundless: FRBR, Linked Data, and New Possibilities for Serials Cataloging - October webinar
Registration is now open for: From Record-Bound to Boundless: FRBR, Linked Data, and New Possibilities for Serials Cataloging Date: Thursday, October 23, 2014 Time: 2:00 pm (EDT) Length: 1 hour Webinar Rates: NASIG members: $35 Non-NASIG members: $50 Group registration: $95 Registration deadline: Wednesday, October 22, 2014 Registration: http://www.nasig.org/site_event_detail.cfm?pk_association_event=9312 Description: The use of linked data within the library community has the potential to significantly impact cataloging and may help improve information discovery and retrieval for the end user. For librarians and users alike, serial publications have been a constant challenge due to their complex publication histories and fluid nature. In this webinar, the presenters will reprise their NASIG 2013 Conference presentation, providing an overview of Linked Data developments within the library and journal publishing communities. By exploring serials in relation to FRBR principles and linked data modeling techniques, the presenters will describe how a search for periodical literature might be improved in a linked data environment. Taking description out of the current record constraints, serials librarians will be able to express the relationships between multiple versions of the same publication, and document how a particular journal has changed over time. The linked data model also opens up many opportunities for the provision of value-added content to bibliographic descriptions. Speakers: Marlene van Ballegooie, University of Toronto Libraries Juliya Borie, University of Toronto Libraries Register now and through October 22: http://www.nasig.org/site_event_detail.cfm?pk_association_event=9312 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Charlene N. Simser Publicist, NASIG, Inc. public...@nasig.org | @NASIG ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Established in 1985, NASIG is an independent organization that promotes communication and sharing of ideas among all members of the serials information chain anyone working with or concerned about serial publications. For more information about NASIG, please visit http://www.nasig.org/.
